SUPPORTERS’ trust OxVox have revealed they met with one of the potential Oxford United investors before Tuesday’s match against Bolton Wanderers.

As exclusively revealed in yesterday’s Oxford Mail, two foreign groups are interested in getting involved with the Sky Bet League One club.

A Chinese consortium are one, with the other led by Uruguayan Juan Sartori, 36, the son-in-law of Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev.

Although the latter is yet to meet United owner Darryl Eales, they were present at the midweek game.

Mr Eales says he had received no offers for the club and was on holiday for the Bolton match.

But OxVox last night confirmed the Oxford Mail’s story, issuing a statement over the rumours of a potential takeover, where they revealed they have spoken to both Mr Sartori and Mr Eales.

“There has been a fair amount of speculation over recent weeks regarding a potential ownership change at OUFC,” the statement said.

“As a supporters’ trust, we’ve worked on understanding what might be happening and have spoken in recent days to Darryl Eales and on Tuesday night met with Juan Sartori at the Kassam stadium.

“Juan Sartori was interested to learn more about our club and also in potentially exploring opportunities with OUFC, but he had not spoken directly with Darryl Eales.

“Darryl confirmed this when we spoke with him.”

OxVox are involved in ongoing discussions with land-owner Firoz Kassam and Oxford City Council about selling the Kassam Stadium and making it a community-owned facility. But any potential takeover deal could impact those talks, with the club and stadium being two separate entities, something highlighted by the trust.

“We have also spoken with Firoz Kassam as part of our ongoing stadium dialogue,” they said.

“It is of course just speculation at this moment, but if there were to be a change of club ownership then this would need to be factored in to our stadium discussions with Firoz and be reflected in the plans that have been discussed to date.

“We are keeping close to all parties.”

Oxford United fans said yesterday they would not be against potential new investors so long as the money was spent in the right way for the club.

Yellow Army member Joe Nicholls, from Abingdon, said if a potential investor was willing to take the ‘right advice’ and do it in the ‘right way’ he would welcome the move.

The 36-year-old added Eales had done a ‘brilliant job’ and had ‘transformed’ the club to be able to compete for a place in the Championship.

He said the club was ‘on the up’ and that if they wanted to be established in the second tier of English football, there needed to be ‘some kind of investment from somewhere’. Mr Nicholls added: “It’s brilliant to be an Oxford United fan at the moment.”

Kevin Broe, who created a rap for United’s trip to Wembley last year in the JPTrophy final said he was split about the potential move.

The 40-year-old taxi driver added: “It works for come clubs and it does not work for others.

“It depends who it is going to be. It would be a lot of money for the club.

“As long as they do the right thing for the club.”

A reader named On the Bench commented on yesterday’s story saying: “I would much prefer Mr Eales to remain in sole charge unless a joint ownership can be arranged. Mr Eales has his heart at the club and that to me is worth so much more than money alone.

“Worst case scenario for me is having a very rich owner based abroad somewhere who turns up for a couple of games a season.

“In Eales and Michael Appleton, we have the ‘dream team’. Long may that continue.”