Portsmouth have been put up for sale by Alexandre Gaydamak. The Franco-Russian owner has been looking for a buyer and would expect to receive in the region of £60 million for the Barclays Premier League club, a sizeable profit on what he paid when he acquired full control about 18 months ago.

If a sale goes through, Portsmouth would be the first team to have been taken over in the initial wave of foreign investment in English football clubs to be resold at a profit. They are among the many potential takeover targets, including Tottenham Hotspur, Charlton Athletic and Fulham, who have been entertaining interest from investors in the past year. Derby County were sold to General Sports and Entertainment, an American company, last week and Dubai International Capital remains keen to take over Liverpool. Manchester United, Aston Villa and Chelsea are among clubs already in foreign ownership.

Gaydamak’s reasons for a sale are unclear, but they could be related to the cost of building the club’s proposed new stadium. He has had interest from at least one investor, but no formal talks have taken place. Checks are being made on the club’s finances to ensure that everything is in order before any sale can progress.

Portsmouth were at the centre of a criminal inquiry in October when City of London Police arrested Harry Redknapp, the manager, and Peter Storrie, the chief executive, as part of an investigation into alleged corruption in football. They denied any wrongdoing.

Portsmouth have been the subject of speculation and rumours since Gaydamak took over at the age of 30, when he became the youngest owner in the Premier League. He has had to deny on several occasions that Arkadi, his father, supplied the money to fund the deal. Arkadi was the subject of a warrant for questioning in connection to an arms-for-oil deal between Russia and Angola.

Gaydamak’s initial investment two years ago helped the club to buy new players and preserve their Premier League status, but the structure of the deal with Milan Mandaric, who had taken the club out of administration nine years ago and steered them into the top flight within four years, has never been fully explained.

Gaydamak is thought to have paid £15 million for a 50 per cent stake and purchased the remainder for anything between £15 million and £32 million six months later. No official figures have been released. Mandaric has since bought Leicester City, the Coca-Cola Championship club.

One of the attractions for Gaydamak was that Fratton Park could be developed for housing. The club have planned to redevelop Fratton Park for years, one scheme involving turning the pitch 90 degrees and building 500 houses on the present site, but that idea has been shelved and plans for a £600 million, 36,000-capacity stadium built on a 13-acre site by the city’s dockyards were unveiled in April. Fratton Park would be turned into 750 new homes.

The club said that they would submit a planning application in 2007, to begin work in 2009 with completion two years later. No plans have been submitted to Portsmouth City Council. It has left some fans sceptical about the project.

There have also been questions about the club’s limited investment in players. They spent in the region of £26 million in the summer, recouping about half from sales.