Owen Oyston

Owen John Oyston (born 3 January 1934) is an English former businessman best known as the former majority owner of Blackpool Football Club.

In the 1950s, he moved to London, where he started his business career as a sewing-machine salesman; however, the firm failed, and in 1960 he moved home to Blackpool.

Following his conviction for rape and subsequent release from prison, Oyston continued to operate his various businesses.

He returned to estate agencies and glossy magazines.

He relaunched Oyston's estate agency and revived two previously low-profile Ridings Publications titles, The Lancashire Magazine and The Yorkshire Ridings Magazine, with managers and journalists who previously worked with him on the "Life" series of county magazines.

After undertaking various sales jobs based in or around Blackpool, Oyston had considerable success in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s in the estate agency business.

By the mid-1980s Oyston's Estate Agents had become the largest firm of family-owned estate agents in the United Kingdom.

In the late 1980s, following the liberalisation of the strict regulations governing the provision of cable television in the UK, Oyston - through Oyston Cable Communications Group Limited - won and started to develop, six of the government-granted monopoly broadband franchises, issued by the newly established Cable Authority and covering almost 700,000 households and businesses in the northwest of England.

He was chairman of the Red Rose Group, later to be named Trans World Communications, which owned and launched Red Rose Radio in Preston in October 1982.

The group went on to purchase Radio Aire in Leeds, Red Dragon Radio in Cardiff, and Piccadilly Radio in Manchester.

All these stations were subsequently sold to the publishing group Emap.

In 1987, he sold Oyston's Estate Agents for an estimated £37 million to Royal Insurance, just weeks before the stock market crash.

It had been launched in April 1987 and had been kept afloat during the 1987 general election campaign thanks to the extension of a loan from the Transport and General Workers Union.

However, after the election, it went bankrupt and Oyston then bought it outright.

Just five months later, in November 1987, it ceased publication.

Oyston also acquired The Superstation, which had been set up in 1987 as a central, syndicated overnight sustaining service for independent local radio in the UK.

In 1987 Oyston bought a large stake in then-struggling Blackpool F.C., becoming the club's owner on 31 May 1988, when he purchased new shares.

It closed in 1990.

In 1990, when the Baby Bell operating companies saw an opportunity to use cable telephony to gain a foothold in the UK's telecommunication market, Southwestern Bell acquired a majority 80% stake in the Oyston Cable Communications Group.

His ambitions of a new stadium for the club made headlines throughout much of the 1990s.

They were eventually realised when he invested in a stadium with new stands, restaurants and a 70-bedroom hotel in the club's original location at Bloomfield Road.

He was a major investor in, and chief executive of, Miss World’s international beauty pageant through Trans World Communications until 1991.

Oyston had media interests in commercial radio.

Oyston's remaining 18% holding was also bought by Southwestern Bell, for £2.99 million, in 1991 (a Statutory Instrument dictated that the remaining 2% holding in Oyston Cable had been vested in Liverpool City Council, on behalf of all the local councils covered by the Oyston franchise areas. )

Oyston was convicted of rape and indecent assault of a 16-year-old girl in 1996.

He served three years and six months of a six-year sentence in prison.

He was released after a judicial review of the parole board's refusal to grant parole.

In October 1996, Oyston said that he was offered control of Manchester United, but that he refused to desert Blackpool.

He commented: "I had the opportunity to buy a controlling interest in Manchester United, but I was not prepared to relinquish my family's interest in Blackpool Football Club. After discussing the matter in detail with the Football League, it was apparent that it would not consider any formula which would allow me to have an interest in both clubs."

Oyston built up holdings in publishing, including the Lancashire Life series of magazines, before selling them in 2000 to the Archant Publishing Company.

He was a major investor in the News on Sunday, a struggling left-wing tabloid newspaper.

Oyston made his first public appearance at Bloomfield Road since his release from prison, in February 2002 at the opening of two new stands at the stadium.

He was instrumental in the club bringing in Latvian businessman Valeri Belokon to invest in the club in 2006.

On 6 November 2017, Oyston and his son Karl were found in a high court judgment to have operated an "illegitimate stripping" of Blackpool F.C., paying £26.77 million out of the club to companies they owned.

The court found that Oyston and his son had abused their majority shareholding position at the club in a manner that was detrimental both to the business and Belokon.

They were subsequently ordered to pay £31 million to buy out Belokon's share of the business, of which £25m+ along with costs were still owed.

On 25 February 2019, Oyston and his daughter, Natalie Christopher, were removed from the board of Blackpool Football Club.

Oyston was born in County Durham, but his family moved to Blackpool when he was two.

He was educated at St Joseph's College in the town.

He opted out of further education at sixteen and started his career as an actor.