Shepherd to Take Over Northern Club in New Year

Freddy Shepherd said yesterday he was poised to tie up a deal with "a northern club" early in the new year. The former Newcastle United chairman picked up more than £37m from his sale of stock in the club in June, with a seven-figure package also believed to have been agreed after he left the board later in the summer.

He is seeking a route back into football and said there were "half-a-dozen clubs" offering him takeover opportunities. Shepherd, who has been strongly linked with a move for Leeds United, wants to invest his wealth in a club close to his Tyne side roots. "Football's a drug, and a powerful drug," he said. "From January I think something could happen. I'm a northern guy, so obviously I'm more interested in northern clubs."

Shepherd would not be drawn specifically on his reported interest in Leeds. But according to Keith Harris, whose company Seymour Pierce has become one of football's most successful deal makers, two Premier League and four Championship clubs are currently looking for buyers.

Although Harris refused to name clubs, he believes the Championship has become a more attractive market for investors. "The wealth differential has expanded between the Premier League and the Championship," said Harris, the co-host of yesterday's Future of Football Conference where Shepherd was a delegate.

"So people are looking lower. A football investor is an inherent gambler. If they are saying 'I have time', they will pick a lower-placed club - which will cost less - and back themselves to take the club to the play-offs, to win the play-offs and then make a run in the Premier League with their own cash generation."

One top-flight club is known to be up for sale. Adam Pearson, the executive chairman of the bottom club, Derby County, has been in the United States and Asia in search of new money and is reported to have delivered the hedge fund Shamrock as its newest investor.

The grapevine suggests that Bolton Wanderers will not long remain in current hands and Mike Ashley, who bought Newcastle off Shepherd and his co-investors the Hall family might also consider offers. "Mike's a trader and a very successful one," said Shepherd. "I wouldn't be surprised whatever he did."