Blues US investors Berke Bakay and Mark Detmer will watch a game at Portman Road for the first time when Town take on Sunderland on Saturday and have already met new manager Kieran McKenna.
It had been expected that Bakay and Detmer would be joined by fellow Three Lion Brett Johnson and Ed Schwartz, the CEO of ORG, who manage funds on behalf of the Arizona Public Safety Personnel Retirement System (PSPRS), the club's ultimate owners, and also Mark Steed, the chief investment officer of PSPRS, however, due to the current Covid travel restrictions they have remained in the US.
Bakay is delighted to have made it to Portman Road eight months on from the takeover, and for a big day at the club with the unveiling of the Kevin Beattie statue and a crowd in the 29,000s watching the game against Sunderland.
"What a historic day tomorrow’s going to be,” he told the club site. "I’m so incredibly happy to be here with Mark and our families our wives and kids, just so happy to be here.
"We had a wonderful tour of the stadium today and we’re just soaking it all in. [I’m a] football guy who has been all around the world, what a special place it is.
"I can’t believe it has taken me so long to be here but I guess I couldn’t have planned between our new manager and a massive match tomorrow with close to 30,000 fans, to be here on a special day. Extremely excited to be here.”
Detmer has thoroughly enjoyed his time in Suffolk up to now: "It’s been spectacular. To have our wives, our children here, unfortunately Brett and Ed and Mark couldn’t be here, but we’re just so happy to be representing the ownership group in Ipswich.
"We’ve loved the town, we walked over to the stadium today from the hotel just to take in more of it. We’ve walked the stadium multiple times today.
"We’ve had a chance to meet Kieran the new manager and we’re just thrilled that he’s on board with us and the project here is, we all know, is to continue to win matches and the 30,000 that will be here tomorrow, couldn’t be more excited to be part of that entire event.”