Derby County Owner David Clowes Doubles Down on Premier League Ambitions

Derby County owner David Clowes came within an hour of selling the club – and then doubled down on funding a Premier League push instead.

That is the picture painted by chief executive Stephen Pearce, who says the Derbyshire businessman remains fully committed to bankrolling the Rams’ promotion ambitions despite a dramatic late collapse of a proposed takeover.

A Deal Cleared, Then Gone

Clowes, the lifelong Derby fan who rescued the club from administration in the summer of 2022, had agreed to sell Derby County to Saudi government official Turki Al-Sheikh in August.

The agreement had gone through all the checks. Both the Independent Football Regulator (IFR) and the English Football League (EFL) had sanctioned the deal. Derby were braced for a new era, with one of the most influential figures in world boxing poised to take charge of a club that narrowly missed out on the play-offs last season.

Then it vanished.

Al-Sheikh suddenly withdrew his interest, leaving Derby stunned and stuck in what Pearce described as a “holding pattern” for a large chunk of the summer transfer window while the bid was scrutinised.

“The wind was taken out of our sails, totally,” Pearce told BBC Radio Derby. “We weren't expecting it to fall down, effectively, an hour before we thought it was going to complete.”

The club had been preparing for a handover. Instead, it had to regroup at speed.

Clowes Spends Knowing He Won’t See the Money Again

What happened next underlines why Pearce calls Clowes “an incredible owner”.

Even while the takeover process was live – and while he believed he was about to walk away – Clowes kept signing off serious transfer spending, fully aware he would never recoup a penny if the sale went through.

Derby moved decisively in the market:

• Around £6m to land Bobby Clark permanently from RB Salzburg
• A loan-to-buy agreement worth £2.7m for Sam Szmodics from Ipswich
• Roughly £600,000 to bring in Alex Mowatt from West Bromwich Albion

Every one of those deals was funded by Clowes at a time when he thought he was about to sell.

“This is why he's such an incredible owner,” Pearce said. “He thought the takeover was going to happen, he knew he was never going to get a penny back for all of that money he spent on those players and he still did it.

“He could have quite easily, on 1 July, said to us and said to John [head coach John Eustace], ‘look, I think this is going through, the signs are the club is going to be sold, you're just going to have to wait because every penny I put in into transfers now I'm not going to get back’.

“And he didn't. He backed it regardless and that's why we're in such a strong position.”

Off the Market, Back on the Front Foot

Clowes had never hidden his desire to attract new investment to fuel a serious tilt at the Premier League. The agreement with Al-Sheikh had been viewed as a huge injection of financial muscle and profile for a club trying to climb out of the Championship.

When the deal collapsed, the strategy flipped.

Clowes pulled Derby County off the market and turned his attention fully to strengthening the squad he had almost handed over. The response was immediate and expensive.

The standout move after the aborted takeover was the £4m signing of David Ozoh from Crystal Palace, the club’s biggest single outlay of the window. Derby also pieced together a series of free transfers and loans, including a deadline-day reunion with Eiran Cashin.

The message was clear: the promotion plan was not being parked.

Asked directly if the disrupted summer had “stalled” Derby’s Premier League ambitions, Pearce was unequivocal.

“Not in the slightest, otherwise we wouldn't have spent all the money we've spent,” he said. “We want to push on. We want progression this season.”

An hour from a sale, now all-in on a promotion charge. Derby’s future will be shaped not by the deal that never was, but by how far Clowes’ backing can carry them up the Championship table.