New EFL takeover revelations emerge involving John Terry | OneFootball

Colchester United owner Robbie Cowling has revealed just how close former Chelsea defender John Terry came to taking over the League Two club.

As high-profile investment in the EFL continues to increase, it looked as though Colchester United were set to become the latest club to be the subject of a big-name takeover.

After Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney's takeover of Wrexham, a number of other stars have bought shares in EFL clubs in recent years, with Tom Brady becoming a minority owner of Birmingham City and Luka Modrić and Snoop Dogg investing in Swansea City.

While Swansea's celebrity-backed project is yet to take off, Wrexham and Birmingham have certainly reaped the rewards of their star-studded ownership, so there would no doubt have been plenty of excitement among the Colchester faithful when former Chelsea defender John Terry was linked with a takeover of the League Two club earlier this year.

After calling time on his illustrious playing career, Terry has had first-team coaching roles at Aston Villa and Leicester City, and he admitted that he was disappointed not to be considered for the position of interim manager at Chelsea after the sacking of Liam Rosenior in April.

Terry recently revealed that he is no longer actively pursuing a managerial opportunity, but it seems he may be open to moving into the boardroom, and he was involved in a consortium that held talks over a potential purchase of Colchester worth around £14 million.

It looked as though discussions were heading in the right direction, and Terry even attended the U's victory over Accrington Stanley in April, but the deal fell through in June, with the 45-year-old taking to social media to express his "great disappointment" at the situation.

Robbie Cowling makes John Terry, Colchester United takeover admission

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Current Colchester owner Robbie Cowling has been in charge of the club for almost 20 years, but he admitted that he believed his lengthy tenure at the JobServe Community Stadium was set to come to an end amid the takeover talks with Terry's consortium.

However, while Cowling stopped short of revealing the exact reasons for the collapse of the deal, he insisted that Terry was not to blame for the takeover not being finalised, praising the former England defender for his professionalism during negotiations.

"I signed a non-disclosure agreement and there’s a lot of things I can’t say about the deal. What I can say is that it got extremely close," Cowling told the Colchester Gazette.

"It got to the point where I thought I’d come to my last game of the season, and I’d been to the last awards ceremony of the season. That’s how close it got.

"I met John just a couple of times and he was excellent the times I met him.

"Danny [Cowley] had quite a lot of conversations with John about what was going on, he met him more. He was extremely professional and it was none of his fault that it failed. It just didn’t go ahead.

"I’m not one to mope about – it hasn’t happened and I’m as committed, maybe even a bit more now. I want to get the club in as good a condition as we can."

Colchester United fans may still feel disappointment at John Terry takeover collapse

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Colchester have been languishing in League Two since 2016, and aside from a play-off semi-final defeat in 2020, they have never seriously come close to achieving a return to League One.

U's supporters have become increasingly frustrated with Cowling's ownership in recent years, so a takeover by Terry's consortium could have had a transformative effect on the club, just as Wrexham and Birmingham have experienced.

In fact, Terry is not the only high-profile name to have explored a takeover of Colchester this year, with a group including former Brazil international Alexandre Pato withdrawing from talks in February, but it seems Cowling's reign will continue for a little while longer.