Coates puts in new bid for Stoke

Stoke City director and former chairman, Peter Coates has tabled a new bid to buy back the club from its Icelandic owners.

Having failed in his last attempt in Summer 2005, he has now given the Icelandic majority owners a new offer of £13m to buy back the club he sold to them in 1999.

Since then he has founded the very successful online bookmaker Bet365, which has boosted his personal fortune by several millon pounds.

The offer consists of a £4m payoff to the Icelandic shareholders, £6m to put into the club’s running costs and to clear most of the debts and an extra £3m to the Icelandic shareholders if Stoke achieve Premiership status within three years.

He has vowed that any money he puts in will not be in the form of loan, but will be exchanged for shares.

We await and see what the Icelandic consortium make of the latest offer, but it seems quite likely that it will again be rejected as one of the conditions of the offer is that the Icelandics, in return, write off loans currently standing at £5m.