The many frauds of Dozy Mmobuosi, failed Sheffield United owner

Dozy Mmobuosi was a big-hitter with a fintech empire when he stepped in to rescue a failing Yorkshire football club. But he was not quite the saviour he seemed.

Dozy Mmobuosi
(Image credit: Alamy)

The first sign that something was going badly wrong for Dozy Mmobuosi began in early 2023 on the windswept terraces of Sheffield United football club. The Nigerian tycoon proffering a £90million takeover offer had been welcomed as a saviour of the Yorkshire club, then in “financial dire straits”, says The Mail and early due diligence hadn’t thrown up any concerns. 

Mmobuosi, after all, was a recognised big-hitter – a mobile-phone entrepreneur, whose global empire had grown to encompass fintech, food processing and agriculture. He came with the endorsement of both Nasdaq, where his Tingo conglomerate had floated in 2021, and of auditors Deloitte. While he waited for formalities to complete, Mmobuosi reportedly pumped cash into the club to stave off administration, notes OneFootball

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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.