Charlie Methven gives Sunderland investment update as manager search steps up

After reports earlier in the week that a potential deal with MSD Partners had collapsed, Stewart Donald told fans he remained ‘very hopeful’ and that there would be an update by the weekend.

In an interview with the Telegraph, Methven has now said that the investment ‘may or may not happen’.

“There have been a lot of rumours and things said that are simply not true” said Methven.

“The talks to attract investor- we have never said it is a takeover – remains ongoing. Those discussion have been going on for some time but we must stress, this is about planning for the future in the Championship, but we need to get promoted first. We need to get out of League One for the next part of the project to begin.

“Even if the new money came in now, we wouldn’t be able to do much with it in League One because of Financial Fairplay rules, but we have always said, we want to plan ahead. There is no great urgency, but I understand some people are frustrated by that. But we cannot force people to part with their money and, as things stand, they may or may not be investing in the club.

“But that has had no impact whatsoever on the decision to sack the manager. We always planned to look at the how things were going after the first quarter of the season and after 11 games, with three quarters of the season remaining, we did not feel things were going as well as they should be.

“Some people felt we removed Ross too soon, others think we took too long, we will only know whether it was the right decision in the fulness of time, but our sole aim is to get promoted this season. We are currently working through a fairly conventional process of identifying the right person to get the team out of League One.”

Sunderland are prioritising League One experience in their search for a new manager, with Coventry City boss Mark Robins rejecting an approach.