Sheffield United claim they are owed £10m by convicted fraudster who tried to buy the club - and Newcastle United

American businessman Henry Mauriss made a £115m bid for the Championship club last season having failed in his attempts to buy Newcastle United.

He was under an FBI investigation at the time, and was jailed for wire fraud in July.

The Blades never officially acknowledged the identity of their would-be buyer but the mooted takeover was quietly dropped in the summer after being put through the Football League's owners and directors’ test.

Mauriss is now the subject of a £10m High Court legal claim by the Blades over an unpaid deposit from the process, as revealed by The Athletic.

The club is currently under a transfer embargo which stopped it signing players in the last transfer window. The embargo was applied because of a failure to pay instalments on historic transfers, and will not be lifted until those debts are settled.

Now another businessman, Dozy Mmobuosi, is understood to be undergoing the same owners and directors’ test with a view to buying the club for £90m.

The court case is between Network SA, set up by Mauriss to buy the club, and United World Holding Ltd, which is the vehicle Prince Abdullah bin Musaid Al Saud used to buy it.

The Blades are claiming that £1m of a £10m deposit owed by Mauriss was submitted to the Manchester sports law firm representing him, JMW Solicitors, in November.

In December Mauriss argued the deposit had not been triggered, and Network SA did not owe the Blades anything.

Legal papers filed by United world said that the Football League requested evidence of the source and sufficiency of £200m of funding promised by Mauriss in March 2022. JMW are said to have shown the current cash balance in the cash deposit account of ClearTV – a Mauriss company which owned a 90.1 per cent share in the network to be £171m – but that this money would not be used for the takeover anyway.

It then claims that four days later JMW emailed the Football League to say corporate bonds purchased by a company named Blackhawk Global Capital (BGC) would be used to fund the purchase, attaching a letter “purportedly from BGC” promising to “shortly” transfer £275m to ClearTV.

In their court submission Sheffield United say the bonds were supposed to have been purchased in June 2019 but there was no explanation why the money had not yet been transferred.

The Football League was said to have requested further evidence of Mauriss’ personal wealth and any due diligence to prove BGC had the available funding – information they are claimed to have told Sheffield United a month later had still not been fully forthcoming.

The unanswered questions ultimately led to the collapse of the proposed takeover.

Sheffield United made no comment when approached by The Yorkshire Post.

Nigerian businessman Mmobuosi was revealed earlier this month to be trying to buy the Bramall Lane club, and he has told Rio Ferdinand's YouTube channel: “Six months ago I was in the city of Sheffield and I was in the pub where I had some Guinness and I felt the energy of that city. Then I made some enquiries, months ago, maybe earlier than I went to Sheffield.

“I had always wanted to support football, the same way I supported grassroots soccer in my country. To be very frank Sheffield United was opportunistic, I felt the opportunity and grabbed it. I felt the energy in the city and the history the club has, it’s a no-brainer.

“I met with Prince Abdullah and we started talking. In a few weeks we had lawyers all around the table at the Dorchester Hotel and that’s how it started.”

He also said that "certain deposits were paid."

He added: “Unfortunately I can’t say anything because I have agreed there will be a joint statement when it’s time, in fact all you see online is very wrong.

“Where we are right now, at any given time the EFL sends us questions. We provide the answers quickly. We believe we have given everything but of course we’re open for more questions and more scrutiny."

JMW Solicitors have been contacted for comment.