Preston fans will be left absolutely stunned this morning amid claims that Chris Kirchner is now close to purchasing Derby County.
American businessman Kirchner had been shown a strong interest in buying Preston over the last couple of months.
Having pulled out of the race to buy Derby in December, it looked like Kirchner was going full steam ahead with a deal for Preston.
Kirchner visited the North West on a couple of occasions, looked around Preston’s facilities and was watching North End games from the United States.
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Kirchner actually agreed a price for Preston in February, but failed to put forward a confirmed offer before his exclusivity period ended on Friday.
Instead, the Lancashire Evening Post claim that Kirchner came back with two lower bids than the originally-agreed price.
Preston are no longer in talks with Kirchner, and he then posted a cryptic message on Twitter after his takeover bid had fallen apart.
It now seems that Kirchner had other irons in the fire because The Sun now claim that Derby are picking Kirchner as their preferred bidder after all.
It’s stated that Kirchner pulled the plug on trying to buy Preston and instead went back to Derby after hearing of a good deal on their stadium.
This is a quite stunning turn of events and suggests that Kirchner had one eye on Derby throughout his pursuit of Preston.
Kirchner, the co-founder and CEO of logistics company slync.io, will now be given the chance to take Derby out of administration after all.
We can absolutely understand Preston fans feeling like Kirchner has strung the club and the fans along for a couple of months before getting the club he really wanted.
Hopefully a new owner does come forward for Preston in the near future – and one that actually wants to finalise a deal.