NEW DELHI: Minerva Punjab Football Club are in talks to sell part or half of the club, its combative owner and AIFF bugbear Ranjit Bajaj told Hindustan Times Thursday.
The fate of this season’s I-League may be unknown but should negotiations be successful, the champions of the 2017-18 edition could fetch between Rs 120-180 million, which is close to the annual fee paid by some franchises in the Indian Super League (ISL), HT reports.
Bajaj said he is talking to three parties but doesn’t have a concrete offer. “There is not even a part-sale offer in the pipeline yet,” he said. The Minerva Punjab FC owner also said he would look at buyers serious about youth development.
“I am not a corporate house so it is very tough so I am trying to look at possibilities where I can raise some money. We are looking for mergers or partners. There have been some offers but we need people who are very serious about taking football forward and not just interested in the business part of it,” said Bajaj.
SportzPower can confirm that one of the organisations Bajaj is in talks with is Roundglass Sports Private Limited. Promoted by Silicon Valley millionaire Gurpreet “Sunny” Singh, Roundglass runs grassroots programmes in football centres across Punjab.
Asked whether he would sell the club and move away from football for now because such deals often have a non-compete clause, Bajaj told HT: “The maximum it can mean is a merger or a 50:50 partnership. It is not going to be like I am giving away the total thing. There is no chance of Ranjit Bajaj selling Minerva Punjab Football Club and being off football unless they (the national federation) ban me.”
Bajaj and representatives of five clubs – Mohun Bagan, East Bengal, Aizawl FC, Gokulam Kerala FC and Churchill Brothers – under the United I-League Clubs umbrella, are currently in the middle of a no holds barred confrontation with the All India Football Federation on the question of their future status.
