Sunderland owner Ellis Short has eyes on top ten finish
May 29 2009 by Mark Douglas, The Journal
“I don’t want to promise things and not be able to deliver but that’s genuinely what we are going to try and do.”
Short was pictured with Quinn at the final two games of the Premier League season and his son, Ellis junior, was a mascot for the latter game – at home to Chelsea last Sunday – but the Irish-American does not intend to be a high-profile presence in the future.
Although he will be wary of delegating complete responsibility for football matters after seeing his millions frittered away by Roy Keane, Quinn and the new manager will be free to make the big decisions.
“Niall runs the club. He is a wonderful chairman of the club who knows more about football than I ever will, so I will be in the background and Niall will be running the show,” he said. “I’ll be involved in things like finance. With me coming in, you get all of these other good ingredients that are already in place and can add to that a streamlined decision-making process, a streamlined board with some financial ability to make some moves. We think that is the missing piece that this club has needed.”
It is Quinn’s “passion” that convinced Short to invest so substantially in the club. “I was a fan of the game (before I invested in Sunderland) but I didn’t really have an idea to invest until I met Niall and there was a lot about Sunderland that interested me.
“It’s a big, proper football club with the best fans in the league, both home and away, with one of the best stadiums in the league and one of the best training facilities in football.
“Niall’s passion was evident so I decided to become involved to hopefully take all these ingredients the club has and help it along to become a little more successful.”
Meanwhile, the club were angered by suggestions in the Irish media yesterday that Drumaville consortium members had all suffered substantial losses on their investments in the Black Cats.
Quinn said the group members had made “a respectable profit”, while consortium chairman John Ryan said that it had been intended as a “sporting passion” anyway.
