Celtic legend Henrik Larsson has taken his place on an illustrious consortium keen to buy an English football club.
The Swede has partnered with Arsenal icon Dennis Bergkamp and his Dutch countrymen Phillip Cocu, Dirk Kuyt and Ronald Koeman with a view to becoming owners.
The Mirror reports there's belief that the financial impact of the coronavirus crisis will see clubs put up for sale in the not too distant future - especially if the season is unable to restart.
Dutch agent Rob Jansen is spearheading the project behind the scenes and he revealed Larsson and Co are choosing their next move carefully, having already failed with a recent attempt to purchase.
He said: "We are in the waiting room, as we call it. In this crisis, the asking price of some clubs will be lowered.
“At the same time the internal -struggles at these clubs will get bigger.
“Recently we were very close to a deal. I am not going to say now which club that was, but at the very last moment we were beaten by a foreign investor.
“That was very disappointing.”
In 2019, Celtic hero Larsson held talks over a foray into the English game as Southend United manager.
He was all set to complete a coaching team compromised of former Parkhead team-mates Johan Mjallby and Tommy Johnson when the latter dramatically pulled out to join Blackpool as head of recruitment.
Southend chairman Ron Martin claimed Larsson was left "absolutely fuming" at Johnson's decision and subsequently pulled the plug on the entire deal.
Martin said: "All the contracts were agreed and he was Henrik’s man.
“When he pulled out I think you could have knocked Henrik over with a feather.
“He and I get on really well and he is a pretty cool customer but he was absolutely fuming when he got a call from Tommy.
“The rest is history. We did talk about who else could replace Tommy but he didn’t have anybody else in mind.
“It just took the wind out of his sails and it disappointed us all.
“I did say, ‘if it’s money, tell us what we need to do’.
“I then spoke to Henrik, and he said, ‘I couldn’t work with him’.
“I get that and that supports everything I think about Henrik, he is a principled guy and he didn’t want to work with a person who had just let him down.”
