Short can bring success: Quinn

May 24 2009 by James Hunter, Sunday Sun

“He wants to take a club and turn it into a success story, not buy a successful club ready made.”

Short took a stake in Sunderland last summer and bankrolled the club’s close-season spending, providing around £40m for transfers.

Quinn has been courting the Texas-based fund manager all season in an attempt to convince him to buy the club outright, and it seems he has succeeded, with Short caught on the TV cameras for the first time sitting alongside the Irishman in Sunderland’s defeat at Portsmouth last Monday.

If Short does take control – and Sunderland stay up – Quinn says the new owner will provide the financial muscle to transform the Black Cats from relegation battlers into, eventually, a top-10 side.

“Chelsea were a middle-of-the-road club when Roman Abramovich took them on to a whole new level,” said Quinn.

“Now I don’t think anyone would want to make out that we can follow Chelsea, but certainly Ellis would want to take us on to the next level from where we are now.

“He would want to make us into a top-10 club, and if European football comes along, that would be fantastic.”