MAIDSTONE United will not be asking a Kent billionaire for money after he offered £20 million to another club.

Peter Cullum, executive chairman of Maidstone-based Towergate, has supported Norwich City since he was a boy.

The Norfolk-born insurance billionaire, worth £1.7 billion, played for Norwich City Boys and offered £20 million to become the club's majority shareholder.

But the club says such a move would require at least £56 million, almost treble Mr Cullum’s original offer.

Maidstone United is still on the lookout for a first-team sponsor, after Britelite Windows pulled out at the end of last season.

Chairman Paul Bowden-Brown said: “We won’t be approaching Mr Cullum, although, of course, we would be very interested if he wanted to meet with us.

“We did approach Towergate, but not Mr Cullum directly.

“We had a reply saying they were already committed to helping several charities and that is fair enough; the company does do a lot of good work.”

But with the club shortly due to present their bid to the Football Foundation for a £2.5 million community stadium in Whatman Way, Mr Bowden-Brown said the search was very much still on for a sponsor.

“We have the kits ready to go and our first match is on August 16, but we still have no name to add to them,” he added.

“The stadium is not just for the club, it has been designed for community use. Any sponsor would help us bring football back to Maidstone and open it up for the community.”

Towergate is valued at more than £3 billion and employs 3,500, 250 of them in Maidstone, Sevenoaks and Whitstable.