Sports

Alexandre Pato joins Northampton Town takeover as club goes debt-free

Errol MayfieldPublished 4d ago2 min readBased on 2 sources
Alexandre Pato joins Northampton Town takeover as club goes debt-free
Photo by Ronnie Macdonald / CC BY 2.0

Former Brazil striker Alexandre Pato is now a co-owner of Northampton Town. The club confirmed the takeover by Sports Alpha Capital has been completed. The deal was approved by the English Football League and the Independent Football Regulator, BBC.

Sports Alpha Capital will hold 70% of Northampton Town Ventures Limited. That company owns the majority of shares in the club. David Bower, Nigel Le Quesne and Kelvin Thomas will keep the other 30% between them.

Northampton said the deal leaves the club debt-free. That matters after the club announced a pre-tax loss of just under £3m in April.

There is change at the top. Kelvin Thomas steps down as chairman after more than a decade. He stays on as a shareholder and director, alongside Bower and Le Quesne.

Joao Xavier and Tim Chamberlain, from Sports Alpha Capital, become co-chairmen. Pato joins the board as a director, Yahoo Sports. Chief executive James Whiting and supporters' representative Tom Cliffe stay in place, while Jim Rosenthal and Mike Wailing step down to become associate directors.

Pato needs little introduction to many fans. He scored 63 goals in 150 games for AC Milan and won Serie A, Italy's top division, in 2010-11. Sports Alpha Capital named him as one of its investors, alongside Gemcorp Capital.

Pato and his fellow investors were already in the stands on 5 September. They watched Northampton beat Newport County 1-0.

They join a club starting again. Northampton finished bottom of League One, the third tier, last season and dropped into League Two, the fourth tier. Chris Hogg was appointed manager in May and brought in 13 players in the summer transfer window, the period when clubs can buy and sell players, including striker Matty Warhurst from Manchester City.

Sports Alpha Capital held talks over Colchester United earlier in 2026. It pulled out after initial talks.

For fans, this means a clean slate off the pitch. The debt is gone. The board is new. The hard part now is climbing the table.

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