Turf set to be sold

Last updated : 28 November 2004 By Tony Scholes

The deal is for the club’s two major assets to be bought by a company in which Football Club Chairman Barry Kilby is the majority shareholder and FC Director John Sullivan a major shareholder.


It will give the club an immediate cash injection of £3 million to allow complete repayment of all bank debts that have shackled the club’s development over the last few years.


The deal consists of the sale of Turf Moor and the training complex at Gawthorpe and a leaseback to the Club for a period of 99 years. A buy back clause allows for the current or future Directors of Burnley FC to reassume ownership when funds permit.

“This move enables the club to avoid the crippling effect of capital repayments that were due to commence under the creditors’ agreement brokered last year,” said Kilby.


“It gives the club the chance to move forward with confidence and a fighting chance to compete with much larger Championship clubs. Hopefully when the club is stronger it can trigger the buy back clause and resume ownership.”

It will be discussed at the Football Club’s Annual General Meeting to be held on Monday 20th December but with the move already approved by the Board of Directors there will be no possibility of the deal not going through.

The news has been met with a mixed reaction by supporters with many showing huge concern that the major asset, the ground, will no longer be owned by the club. They point to other clubs where the ground has been sold off.

It is sure to be a massive talking point in the next few weeks – it saw certainly news that I never wanted to hear, that Turf Moor would not be owned by Burnley Football Club.