On Christmas Eve, Sunderland confirmed Kyril Louis-Dreyfus has reached an agreement with Stewart Donald to acquire his ‘controlling interest in the club’.
The deal is subject to approval from the EFL, and when approved, the Frenchman will become the new chairman of the League One side.
Saturday’s edition of L’Equipe explains KLD worked on the deal to sign the Black Cats for the last six months, and he finally sealed it earlier this week.
The 23-year-old’s father, Robert Louis-Dreyfus, owned French side Marseille from 1996 until his death in July 2009.
After Robert’s death, KLD’s mother, Margarita Louis-Dreyfus took control of the Ligue 1 side until she sold her stake to club’s current majority shareholder, Frank McCourt, in 2016.
Kyril saw his father’s health deteriorate when he was managing Marseille. He had then decided not to involve himself in anything related to football after Margarita sold her share to McCourt.
During an interview with L’Equipe, KLD explained what convinced him to buy Sunderland.
“Following the sale of Marseille, I held on to an idea: We won’t do anything in football anymore, it’s a rotten business,” he said.
“However, Sunderland is a special project, really. The potential is in England. At Marseille, we didn’t own the Velodrome, which caused us a lot of problems.
“Sunderland own its stadium, which has the seventh highest capacity of the country. The fervour is reminiscent of Marseille’s.
“In the third division, before the health crisis, there were more fans on average (nearly 30,000) than in half of the Premier League clubs. You can’t buy this! In cities like Zurich, Monaco, no one is interested in football, it limits the possibilities of expansion.”
