TWO of the country’s most prominent publicans have emerged as backers of Niall Quinn’s £16m (€23m) bid to take over Sunderland football club.

Charlie Chawke, who paid more than €20m for the Old Orchard Inn in Rathfarnham last year, and Louis Fitzgerald, who owns a chain of 24 pubs, are among the eight-strong Drumaville consortium backing the former Irish international striker’s bid for Sunderland chairman Bob Murray’s 56.8% stake in the club last Friday.

The other six members are the property developer Sean Mulryan; builder Paddy Kelly; Jack Tierney of Faxhill Homes; and three UK-based Irish property developers, believed to be Pat Beirne, John Hayes and Patsy Byrne.

If Murray accepts the offer for his stake in the publicly quoted Sunderland, the consortium will then be obliged to offer the same deal to the club’s other shareholders. This would value the club at a little below £16m, and the buyers would also take on the club’s £35m bank debts. It is understood the eight investors behind Quinn are equal shareholders, stumping up just short of £2m each, with further debt finance coming from Lombard, a division of the Royal Bank of Scotland.

If the takeover is successful, Quinn will assume an executive chairman role at the club. Sources close to the deal also said the consortium has no plans to make a property play on the club’s Stadium of Light ground.

“There are no plans as of yet to redevelop it. But in the future, the consortium might look at adding a hotel to the stadium, and possibly a casino. But right now the focus is on developing the football club,” said one source.

“There will certainly be money in the kitty for new players and a big-name manager. The club will be run as a football business just as before, but this time with more resources.”

Contrary to reports in the local Sunderland press last week that the consortium was starting to wobble, the current eight members are the original members. It is understood that hoteliers Tom Moran and Pat Power, who had been reported to have pulled out of the consortium last week, had never been among the eight signed-up members of Drumaville.

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