Football Daily - The American Dream: How & why American owners continue to infiltrate British football

Episode Date: June 8, 2025

Kelly Cates is joined by The i Paper's chief football writer Daniel Storey, Sports economist Victor A. Matheson & football finance expert Kieran Maguire, as they delve into the rising number of American owners across British football. It's 20 years since the Glazer family’s highly-controversial and highly-leveraged takeover of Manchester United. Throughout those two decades, the Glazers have been the prime target of fan protests with “Glazers out” still ringing around Old Trafford. So over the course of this episode you’ll hear why US investors are obsessed with British football, and how real are the concerns that US owners could collude to “Americanise” the traditions of English football from the removal of promotion and relegation to moving matches overseas and relocating clubs to other cities.

BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. The Football Daily podcast on BBC Sounds. On the pitch clubs owned by Americans are currently dominating the English game. Liverpool owned by Fenway Sports Group have just won the Premier League. Arsenal, part of the Cronkite family's sporting empire, are currently in second. Both Leeds, owned by San Francisco-based 49ers Enterprises, and Burnley, owned by ALK Capital, have been promoted from the Championship already, which brings the number of clubs in the Premier League next season with US shareholders to

at least 12. In League One, Birmingham City had a record-breaking season with 111 points. The club's owners, Knighthead Capital, also shattered spending records along the way. Wrexham, owned of course by Hollywood actors Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, also promoted to the championship. But American owners don't always have an easy life in English football. It's 20 years since the Glazer family's highly controversial and highly leveraged takeover of Manchester United. Throughout those two decades, the Glazers have been the prime target of fan protests, with Glazers out still ringing out around Old Trafford.

So over the course of the next hour, we'll discuss why US investors are obsessed with English football and how real are the concerns that US owners could collude to Americanise the traditions of English football, from the removal of promotion and relegation, to moving matches overseas and possibly even relocating clubs to other cities. Alongside me from the next hour, Daniel Story, Chief Football Writer of the I and Victor Matheson, Sports Economist at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts in the United States.

Hello to both of you. Daniel, we're going to both of you. Daniel, we're gonna start with you because you have now completed it. You visited all 92 English football league clubs this season. So give us a sense of how much influence you got of the American money coming into English football. Yeah, I mean, it isn't just the top of the Premier League.

That's where the obvious focus lies, particularly with Liverpool winning the league. But a third of EFL clubs, a third of the 72 clubs in the EFL are majoritably or minority shareholder owned by Americans. And it is growing all the time. Rob Kuig is the latest after his takeover at Reading. They needed that takeover and they're delighted to see him. He is just the latest.

And within that, there's a vast range of experience. You know, you look at 23rd team in League 2 this season, 91st in the Football League and relegated to non-league is the Piatek family from Florida with Carlisle United. Just above them, you've got Gillingham in 17th in League 2, they're owned by an American family and it is now, I think it's fair to say, a case of when a club, whether it's in the EFL or the Premier League, is taken over. There's an assumption that there will be an American behind it, whether that's a rich individual, whether that's part of a consortium or whether that's a, you know, a kind of a company takeover. It seems to be the natural choice now for Americans. Why, Victor? Why is it happening? Well, one of the reasons is simply business is trying to diversify, right?

You don't want to necessarily put all of your eggs in just the American basket. You also don't want to put all of your eggs in just the basket of football or baseball or basketball. And so this allows folks to be able to, again, have a better diversified product. On top of that, they're hoping to leverage the skills that they think they've gained being sports owners in the US, to be able to bring that management skill to English football teams.

Also maybe to have some sort of tie-ins, all right? A bunch of these owners have huge empty stadiums that sit around with no teams in them during most of the summer months. And bringing English football clubs over to do exhibition matches is exactly the sort of thing that gets those, again, big empty stadiums used during the off season. Yeah. And we'll start to look into quite a few of those points in more detail as we progress

through throughout the hour. So currently 32 clubs across the English pyramid who are owned or part owned by US investors. Now the first club to become American owned was Manchester United. They were bought by the Glazer family 20 years ago. It was controversial Daniel, as we've pointed out it was highly leveraged as well. It still is a sore point for Manchester United fans and has been a sore point for Manchester United fans even through successful periods of the Glazer ownership. Yeah, and that's an important point to make. In the first decade of the Glazer ownership, Manchester United won more domestic trophies than any other English club and the ill feeling

remained because of, as you say, the leveraging of that takeover until 2005. Manchester United had roughly 100-ish years of debt-free club. And at the time of that takeover, that debt was put on them at £558 million. It now stands at £731 million. And there's a kind of rough estimate that mentions the kind of the infamous £1 billion, which is the one billion pounds that has gone out of Manchester United since that takeover. And I think even if Manchester United were top of the league every season, if they were competing for the league every season, FC United and Manchester would still exist.

They would still be ill feeling about how that takeover was done, about how fans felt that they were hoodwinked. They could appreciate that success, but I think it's fair to say in English football and English football supporters, it's very quick to lose trust and it's very hard to get it back and I don't think they would have got that back yet. But what we see now is a Manchester United that has drifted off the pitch, that has drifted away from its ethos in terms of what it wanted to be before

the Glazers took over and is now miles away from where it wants to be on the pitch as well. So inevitably that ill feeling grows when there's no success to distract you. Victor, we haven't brought you on here to kind of fly the flag for American ownership of English football teams or to defend the owners and we will get on to the more successful ones a little bit later on. But just because the Glazers were the first US family to buy an English football team, I'm interested to know what the reaction was in the US as to why they might be doing it. Well, you got to understand 20 years ago, soccer was a much smaller sport in the United States

than it is now. Nowadays, we have a large professional league with well-funded teams. We have Americans definitely looking forward to the World Cup in 2026. We have the Premier League has a huge TV contract that brought broadcast live games here in the United States. 20 years ago, that's not the case.

This was actually very unusual. We certainly had owners own one more than one team. But usually that's the rich guy in Boston buys a couple different teams, buys a basketball team and a football team. It was unheard of of an American going outside of the US to go buy something in this, you know, completely unusual sports soccer, and we hadn't ever seen that before. Obviously nowadays, not a surprise at all. You know, a lot of Americans following, of Americans following the big teams like Liverpool,

the little teams like Wrexham and the imaginary teams like Ted Lasso. Do you know what? We can't underestimate the effect of Ted Lasso, certainly on the US supporters of English football now, but was the Glazers aimed just to maximise revenues or was there more to it than that? Was it as cold as maybe it's viewed in this country? Yeah, very different about the American Football League, the NFL and the soccer leagues around the world is that American football very strictly restricts the amount of money that each individual team can pay for payroll. So every team in the NFL has a very strict salary cap, can't pay more to players than that, and it's also got a very strict salary floor.

So a team playing in a tiny town like Green Bay, Wisconsin, it has exactly the same payroll as a team playing in Los Angeles or New York City. Of course, that's totally different in the Premier League, where some teams have payrolls, you know, five to ten times what teams at the bottom do. That also, you also don't have promotion or relegation in the U.S., right? So this is teams that do poorly on the field, they stay in the NFL year after year after year unlike we see in the UK So again a completely different business and I think Obviously it went very well For the the glazers early because they inherited a team that was in great shape and well poised to

dominate for about five years after the purchase but I think the the they found that the soccer world in the UK was a lot different business than the NFL world in America. And the results have shown over the past decade, haven't they? Different in what way, Victor? Well, one thing that is definitely the case in the United States is that there are not teams that expect to be that champion year after year after year because if everyone is playing the same game with the same payrolls, there isn't a fan base that says, well, we should be winning the

title every single year. We should be coming in the top five every single year. European clubs, on the other hand, because of the way they've developed, there's not much competitive balance among those top teams. So again, fans are used to being that Premier League winner, that Champions League entrant. You're used to seeing Bayern Munich winning every year. We're used to seeing a PSG in France winning every year.

And when the Glazers couldn't deliver that to Man United, they're like, well, look, we don't win every year in Tampa Bay the Glazers couldn't deliver that to Man United, they're like, well, look, we don't win every year in Tampa Bay, why are you guys so upset about coming in second and third a bunch of times? That would be great here in the NFL. Not so great for a fan base that's used to coming into the top, again, season after season.

The thing is, Daniel, and the quibble that, quibble is a light word to use that Manchester United fans will have with the glazers is not just about how the purchase was funded, but about the amount of money that's been spent without having that success. There isn't an argument that they haven't spent money. It's about the debt that's been loaded on the club as a result of that. And also the fact that there hasn't even been success to kind of sweeten the pill if you like. Sir Alex Ferguson said in 2012 about the Glazers, there's a whole lot of factions at Man United that think they own the club.

The majority of real fans will look at it realistically and say it's not affecting the team and at that stage you could argue that it wasn't. But 13 years on, do you think that what's happened at that level is affecting the team? Yeah, it has to be. At the point of that purchase, what you have is a disconnect that can never be changed, which is that effectively what happened is that a group came into the club with no affiliation to that club and spent its own money to buy it through the leverage buyout. Now, everything Victor says is right about the differences between US and English sport, but they were not a secret, or they shouldn't have been a secret.

And I think if a purchaser had come in with £700 million of their own money, that research would probably have been done. You would expect that they would be more on board with how to run a football club. Manchester United felt like a guinea pig experiment. They felt like they were being taken for a ride. And the club that was being taken for a ride was at that point the most successful club in England. So it was a slap in the face of them on every level.

Now, to repeat what we said earlier, if they win the title every season, that doesn't fix the problem, but it certainly distracts from it. What we now have is a football team that is barely worth the sum of its parts. However much money gets piled onto it, it doesn't seem to improve, it seems to get worse. Playing in a stadium that, you know,

the roof leak became the symbol of that, but it goes beyond that. It's a stadium that vastly needs updating or, as we now hear, completely changing, and that's going to be expensive as well. And nobody at the club who's still there from 2005 in terms of ownership has demonstrated any area of expertise that they're going to be the ones to fix it. And when you add all that together, supporting Manchester United becomes a deeply dispiriting experience. They weren't the only American owners to buy one of England's biggest clubs on debt. Tom Hicks and George Gillette's Leverage buyout at Liverpool in 2007 focused on debt repayment over investment in the team. And Daniel, that was something that was picked on quite quickly by the supporters and led to near administration amidst protests from the fans.

Yeah, and Billy Hogan, Liverpool's CEO now has been perfectly explicit about how close Liverpool came to the worst news. He's been to that in 2023, he said that Liverpool were basically a month from going into administration, which could have led to bankruptcy. In a sense, that enables him to upsell the work done by FSG since, and I don't blame him for doing that, but it was clearly a serious situation. They took over a club in 2007 that was recent Champions League winners under Rafa Benitez, and they kind of strained the relationship with Benitez. They used RBS loans to buy the club. Fans, because Manchester United had come first,

could see this very quickly coming from down the road. There was no surprise. There was a reason to be pretty angry about events. And in almost in a kind of sped up version of the Manchester United experience, they saw a team declining really badly, finishing seventh in the league with Steven Gerrard still on the pitch,

kind of looking around as if to say, is this gonna be it? Yeah, It was a, it was a desperate experience for Liverpool fans. We should say this is not purely an attack on American owners per se. They were taken over by FsG. No, we'll come on to the good ones. Fantastic work. Yeah, they've done fantastic work since. But yeah, Liverpool at that point were if not at their lowest ebb in terms of league position in their history, certainly in the most great danger of serious financial issues than they'd ever been. We are about one

question away from coming on to FSG and to other American owners who have had success in English football. But Victor, while Daniel talks about the fans maybe taking the warnings from Manchester United when gelatin Hicks brought out Liverpool, similarly did gelatin Hicks look at what the Glazers were doing at Manchester United and think, there's money to be made here? Did they take inspiration from them? Yeah, at risk of sounding like an economist, which of course I am, economists think about sports in kind of two ways. An owner can be a profit maximizer, in which case you're trying

to squeeze as much revenue out at the lowest cost, or you can be a win maximizer. And basically there I'm trying to win games without going out of business. Obviously if you have like club owned teams, teams like Real Madrid and Barcelona, they're clearly win maximizers. You don't buy a season ticket as part of a club owners, club membership of Barcelona to try to get some sort

of dividend at the end. You want a trophy, right? And of course, if you're some of these owners like Mansour Bin Zayed, right, at Man City, or Roman Abramovich, the former Chelsea owner, again, these are guys who are basically buying these things as toys. They don't wanna lose a ton of money on it,

but they're trying to win as much as they can. This is their toys. you know soccer trophies like some of us collect stamps right so you if you're a fan man you want one of those owners right someone who comes in and wants to just pour money in because then you can go along for the ride on the other hand if you're a fan and your per and your new owner comes in and says hey I want to figure out how to make as much money on this as I can figure out how to make as much money on this as I can.

Usually the way to make as much money as you can is to not go after those highest priced stars, kind of drift along as best as you can, not spending a lot of money, winning games here or there that's enough to keep your fans coming back, but not enough to have, again, that like that huge streak of success that Man United had. So Liverpool eventually, and I knew we'd get there, was sold to Fenway Sports Group in

2010. FSG also owns Boston Red Sox and the Pittsburgh Penguins. Let's talk about it initially, how the way that FSG run the Red Sox compares to how they run Liverpool and whether or not that's changed and adapted to life in the Premier League. Well, so at least one thing to think about the Red Sox owners, they're not afraid to spend money, but they won't spend money just to spend money. So they are somewhat conservative in making sure they're getting some sort of return on their dollar, but they are not completely closing the purse strings. And I think that pretty well describes both the current Boston Red Sox as well as Liverpool. It's also important to understand that they bought Liverpool at a time where Boston Red

Sox were the first big team embracing what's called money ball in the United States. And money ball is trying to again spend money effectively so that you can win championships, not necessarily by spending the most money, but by spending the smartest money. And, you know, I think we can we can look at Liverpool and say, yeah, they've spent some smart money at least this season. Yeah, spent some smart money this in fact, not actually spent that money in the build up to this season, but there's certainly when there's been money to spend, have spent it wisely.

And I don't think there's much argument around that, Daniel. And while there may be some question marks from from certain sections of Liverpool fans about how much money is invested in the squad, what has been invested has been invested well and in the infrastructure as well. Yeah, absolutely. The development of Anfield versus the decay at Old Trafford is a pretty symbolic Northwest example of the difference

in the two ownership models. It's also true that good generals get lucky and lucky generals are good because you look at you go out to me like October 2015 and Liverpool have just finished sixth in the Premier League they've gone out in the Europa League round of 32 and the Champions League group stage before that they've sacked Brendan Rodgers at that point they appoint Jurgen Klopp and it becomes a masterstroke and everything

tends to build upon your successes I think in in football and certainly as as football writers and journalists, we make sometimes the mistake of working two years behind in hindsight and we say, well, that was a brilliant decision. That was a fine strategy. That can all be true. And Liverpool's owners have done exactly that. You also have to make the right decisions and those decisions have to pay off. And that most of the time, that's at least half down to chance. They didn't expect to become this all conquering force in Europe and eventually the Premier League under Jürgen Klopp when they bought that.

That was obviously the hope and they did give him the tools to succeed. But certain mileposts need to happen along the way for you to get it right. We talked about the Glazers distracting in that first 10 years because Ferguson was brilliant. They found their equivalent of Ferguson for the best part of 10 years and that really helps and when that manager changes you hope that you get a guy in on a slot who wins the title in the first season and it looks brilliant again but it's when those things work out well that it makes you look better and that's the perfect situation for any owner. They would argue, Victor,

that they've put the right people in the right place in order to bring that about, that it was just attention to detail and meticulous planning that led to Yogan Klopp and then Arna Slott. I 100% agree with Daniel here. Luck is half skill and skill is half luck. And I think a lot of people should understand

that that's the case. Yeah, I think that's probably, and in football as in life, I think as well. And the Cronkies who own Arsenal, also in the LA Rams, the Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche, Colorado Rapids. So you talked a little bit about this earlier, Victor, in terms of that multi-sport, multi-club ownership model.

That's clearly quite familiar in the US. So how does Arsenal fit within that structure? Well one way it does is that it again expands their footprint into a new sport. I know they do have the Colorado Rapids as well and Anschutz was extremely important in developing, excuse me, the Chronic East were extremely important in developing Major League Soccer here. That being said, you know, going to a new country again means that you're not just simply reliant on your own economy at home. The other thing, at least historically, owners were reluctant to expand into the markets of other owners in their league. So for example, if I am an NFL owner in Boston, I'm reluctant and maybe even prohibited by league rules

from opening a soccer team in New York. So that limits this number of places that you can expand to. But guess what? No one owns an NFL team in England, which means that you have this very fertile area where there are lots of potential franchises that you're not going to anger any of your fellow owners by moving into what's not their territory, what's the territory for someone else. Hello, I'm Manushka Matandodawati, the presenter of Diddy on Trial from BBC Sounds. Sean Diddy Combs is facing a fight for his freedom as his hugely anticipated trial starts for sex trafficking, racketeering with conspiracy and transportation for prostitution.

He denies all the charges. I'll be bringing you every twist and turn from the courtroom with the BBC's correspondents and our expert guests. So make sure you listen, subscribe now on BBC Sounds and turn your push notifications on so you never miss a thing. The Football Daily Podcast on BBC Sounds. Kieran Maguire from The Price of Football joins us now. Evening Kieran. Hi Kelly.

We've touched on the Glazers, FSG and the Cronkys. Just talk us through who else will have a US stake in England's top flight next season. Well we've got Aston Villa for example with West Edens. We've got majority ownership at Crystal Palace. We've got the Knights at Bournemouth and so on. So what we are seeing is owners coming into the Premier League because it's relatively cheap to do so. If I want to buy an American NFL franchise or NBA franchise, it's going to cost me $5 million. Bournemouth were acquired for 120, 130 million.

We've had Ipswich in the Premier League this season. They were acquired for less than 100 million. So it's relatively cheap to buy in. Then you've got all of the potential rewards of the Premier League, should you survive in there. And that becomes very alluring and very attractive to American investors who have an awful, there's this huge wall of cash in the Premier League, should you survive in there? And that becomes very alluring and very attractive to American investors who have an awe for this huge wall of cash in the United States, and they're wondering what to do with it. And the success of Welcome to Wrexham and so on at lower tiers has made it attractive. And then to get into the Premier League is the ultimate aim, of course. And former NFL star JJ Wattatt, became a minority owner of Burnley in May, 2023,

along with his wife, Kalia. He's been telling Mock Chapman why he invested in Burnley and about his aims to expand the club's global fan base, especially in the US. I think each person has their own different reasons. I think that when you look at the 49ers group and their things, they're gonna have different reasons than me as an individual.

I mean, for me personally You look at an American American football club, you know right now they're all valued in the Billions of billions of dollars. Well, what did Washington Washington was last? 05 billion dollars. Yeah, so you take my amount of money and you put into that and your Congratulations, you have one seat at the a game, not at the board table, not at anything. But you come over here and the valuations are different and there's more opportunity.

And you also can kind of choose the level you want to be at. You want to go into Tottenham or Man United or Chelsea. That's the American football level. You drop down to championship if you want to. You drop all the way down, league one, league two. But I saw an opportunity where I could get involved at the level I wanted to be involved at, be in the board meetings, learn, grow, while also injecting something

and providing a service to the club that I feel I'm bringing something to the table myself in terms of global notoriety, more eyeballs to the game, etc. So, but ultimately, the thing that brings you to English football is the history, tradition and passion and supporters. That's it. And community as well. Correct. Which has always been a hugely important part

of your playing career as well. I mean, you have bought into that right from the very start. I don't see much point in doing something if you're not going to go all in on it. And so for me when I was drafted by the Houston Texans I had never been to Houston before. I had no connection to Houston but if I'm gonna ask those people to come cheer for me on game day I better invest in those people also. Same over here in Burnley. If I want these people to believe in me as one of the members of their ownership group, they have no

reason or right to do so. I'm an American with zero ties to Burnley. Why would they do that? So I better show them that I'm willing to come over and invest in them and to put my time and energy and to learn about them. You can't just expect it to happen. The other thing that always strikes me with it as well is there's a, there's a danger element for you investigate investing in a, in a football club because you can go up as what you financially or emotionally. But if you, if you have a terrible seat and you didn't have very many, but if you have a terrible season at the Houston Texans,

nothing's gonna really happen disastrously by you. In terms of relegation. In terms of my own mental status, it's pretty bad. Obviously. But yes, but relegation, I understand what you mean. But, and therefore your investment in something like this. Much more volatile. Much more volatile.

Yes, but that's also the attraction attraction is that you can purchase in the champions Let me know you look at Rexam. Everybody wants to talk for exome you look at Rexam that's the attraction is you can take a club that you buy for two million pounds and you can turn them into a Ten twenty four thousand X multiple of that. That's also the thrill of it. That's why you can invest in it That's why it's so exciting and exhilarating. I wish there was a way for us to do that on our side, but there never will be. Do you? I think it's the most pure form of sporting competition that you can have when it's now you're going to go into a deeper conversation on merit based on finances dumped into it

and salary caps and things like that. But when there is a literal consequence for winning and losing, it makes sport as close to the truest form of sport that you can have. When you know that there's nothing bad that can happen if you finish last, it kind of dilutes the product. In some ways, having worked in both sports for a long time and obviously you're now heavily involved in both sports You kind of want a sort of amalgamation of the two at I agree I think that if there was a way where you can include some form of salary cap and things like that

I do think there's a benefit to the parody I think that's one thing that makes the NFL so great is that the league is designed for everybody to try and hover around 500 now you're gonna have outliers but defenders cost more so reading you know if you relishing that the NFL so great is that the league is designed for everybody to try and hover around 500. Now you're going to have outliers but defenders cost more. So Reed, do you know you relish that? I think I would be pretty miserable if I didn't believe there was some way to change it a little bit, change our fortunes and find a way. Now am I naive enough to think that we can win the Premier League next year if we go up? No, I understand how all this works. But I think the fun in it and the competition in it is in how do you make those small little rotations

to get yourself up and then find a way. And yeah, you might have to get bumped back down, but then you get up and up. And now all of a sudden, you go from trying to get up to the Premier League, and now you're in a relegation battle, to now you're in that 17th, 16 16th battle now you're going up to the 12th, 13th battle. Those are the little wins that you try and make and sure do we all dream of a Leicester style run one day? Absolutely. But I think it's more in the individual

little things trying to make your club better on a year-by-year basis. That was JJ Watt talking about the investment model at Burnley and what attracted him to that and it picks up on a point that you made before we heard of him about the entry level for investors and how that's more manageable in English football. Is the ceiling different though compared to American sport? At the Premier League level I would say that the ceiling is broadly similar. We saw Jim Ratcliffe come in to buy a quarter of Manchester United which effectively valued the club at around about five billion so that's quite similar to what

we're seeing in the top level NFL and NBA franchises but once you drop below the elite level of English football and there's JJ Watt said in League Two you can pick up clubs for less than £10 million. We've seen Wrexham accelerate through the divisions. I think they are an outlier, but even the likes of Stockport County, who were required for, again, we're talking a single million there, and they've gone up through the divisions through having investment. American investors, they like the casino element of that. They like the adrenaline rush and there's JJ what was saying, I think they do want to invest in in the

history because there is still that that special relationship between the United States and England and they've very much bought into welcome to Rexam and Ted Lasso as well now I teach in the United States each summer and it's amazing the huge enthusiasm and also the incredible knowledge that American investors have in the English game. I think we tend to be a little bit arrogant and sniffy about it at times on this because it's part of the culture here which is slightly different but they do an awful lot of homework before they buy into clubs.

You mentioned Rex inxham there. Victor, you know, Kieran talked about them as being an outlier. Is that purely because they have the star quality, they have that pool, they have that Disney program, they have access to all these multinational organizations that can help them in their promotion of the club? Obviously, that's a part of it. that can help them in their promotion of the club? Well, obviously that's a part of it.

But I think they're a really good encapsulation of this idea that, look, if Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhaney, who are super big movie stars, right? These guys are richer than anyone you or I would ever know. They can't even come close to buying even a Major League Soccer franchise in the United States, much less an NFL franchise. I mean, these guys are millions of dollars, guys.

To be a big time owner in the United States, you need to be a billions of dollars, guys. And these guys bought into Wrexham for, again, about two and a half million dollars, two million pounds, right? That's money that I don't have, but it is money that other people can buy into. And we just simply don't have competitive sports in the United States at those sort of lower price points. We do have an extensive minor league baseball system,

but minor league baseball in the United States is a purely entertainment product because no one actually cares who wins, which is exactly the opposite, obviously, of what we see in promotion relegation leagues, where we know that people care who wins those games in the minor leagues in the UK. But that's why using all those connections, Daniel, to get the documentary, to get people invested in the stories, to get people to see what those match-going fans look like. That's why it works because then there is that emotional connection from a distance. Yeah, I mean the magic of that Wrexham project, and I think it is a triumph on basically every level,

is that two guys have come in with no prior experience and have hardly put a foot wrong, partly through delegation. It's a dichotomy really. It's on one element, it's this kind of massive North American expansion project with a documentary and with sponsorship and with buying players effectively a league above

where you are and constant run of promotions and this kind of sense of goodwill and success that now feels impossible to burst. And then on another level it's this hyperlocal project which is a town in north Wales that was really down on its luck, that suffered through a decline of industry. Had these two guys walk in and say do you want us to try and change the lives of your football clubs? And pretty much as one, they said, yeah, that sounds quite nice, thanks. And four years later, they still feel exactly the same because nothing's gone wrong.

And noting that community aspect, noting that, you know, I went to Wrexham this season for the 3-0 win over Burton, and it's not just words. Ryan Reynolds was there, he spent 45 minutes with fans before the game, that's what happens. When I went to see Bristol Rovers' owner this season, he's a Kuwaiti guy, and he said, the first thing I learned here,

and he'd not managed in sport before, was that everybody remembers everything, and everybody judges you on everything, for better and for worse. And if you try your best, if you show people that you're honest and that you want to take them forward, they will love you like nothing else. And that's what's happening at Wrexham right now.

If you go in and you buy their club with a leverage takeover and you pile 100 millions of pounds of debt on their club, don't be surprised when people turn around and say, you know, I don't really see what the benefit of you being here is. It's not rocket science in that regard, but to repeat, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney went into Wrexham and they have barely made a decision wrong in four years and that's why they're where they are. Joining them in the championship next season, Birmingham City, they're owned by the Knighthead Capital Management, fronted by Tom Wagner and they have a minority investor in the Super Bowl winning quarterback, Tom Brady. Kieran, on Birmingham, I mean, they're trying to sort

of follow that Rexham model a little bit. They're launching the documentary. They've got a lot of profit-making measures within the club. There's a new fan zone, there's airline sponsorship, the relaunch club shop. And they've managed, after a bumpy start, to get success by spending money. And yet, culturally it's quite a difficult point to make with English football fans who generally feel that success has to be earned, that you shouldn't be able to just come in and splash the cash and get success that way. But if you're a fan of that club that feels very different. It does and I think there's a lot of, sometimes it's envy, sometimes some fans like to be quite puritanical about the position they have financially but

for every Birmingham, for every Wrexham there's also a Carlisle who are one of the biggest spenders in League Two this season and they've ended up being relegated to the National League. So it's not just a case of spending money, it's a case of appointing the right people to run the club and then spending that money wisely. Birmingham have invested unprecedented sums at the third tier of English football this season, but it's generated huge crowds. It's allowed them to justify the nature of the commercial deals, but we would expect significant losses to be made. And I think you can do that in League One and League Two. When you get to the Championship and you're now competing against clubs that are spending a hundred million pounds or have spent a hundred million pounds the previous season when being relegated from the

Premier League, it is a completely different ballgame and the average losses in the in the championship of five hundred and thirty eight thousand pounds a week and what you will find is that that Wrexham and Birmingham are big hitters in league one terms but they will not be the biggest hitters as far as the championship is concerned. The other thing that we're the kind of elephant in the room with some of the clubs we've talked about it certainly counts for Birmingham, it counts for Liverpool with FSG as well, it's also really important who you follow right, if you take over a local owner, a guy who's done good,

you know, Dave Whelan at Wigan, for example, then you have to make pretty damn sure you get most of the decisions you make right, because you're following the guy who has a statue outside the stadium and who took you to the FA Cup final and you won it. If you are night head at Birmingham and you're following a series of owners, which, you know, Kieran will know this only too well, but we could spend 45 minutes talking about Birmingham a series of owners, which, you know, Kieran will know this only too well, but we could spend 45 minutes talking about Birmingham City's previous owners. And following them becomes easy. You can make quick wins.

And I think when you're coming from abroad and there is a suspicion about US ownership and the traditionalism of English football heritage, those quick wins become massive, because you get to open your book and open your doors and say, you can trust us. And just that trust in itself generates a goodwill quick wins become massive because you get to open your book and open your doors and say, you can trust us. And just that trust in itself generates a goodwill, which can take you a heck of a long way when you add on some money to it.

Sadly, we don't have 45 minutes to talk about Birmingham's succession of previous owners. It hasn't all been a success in terms of American investors in the EFL. Who's got it wrong? And is there a thread or have they all got it wrong in multiple different ways? Well, we've just been talking about Sunderland and we mentioned Aston Villa. They've had American owners that have lost over £100 million a piece. I just mentioned Carlisle, who have been relegated. I think there's been problems at Crawley Town. They've not published their accounts for last year. So they're trying to work out the finances and what's happening with some of these owners.

At the same time, there are more owners coming in at all levels of the game who think that they know the answer of how to make more money. So it is hit and miss, and that's also the same as far as English and other investors. It's not a background issue. It's understanding the culture of the sport. And if you are naive, and this is my concern, is that some people are coming in with all the best intentions. If you're naive and don't understand the nature of the industry, the problem is that you've

got a friend for every pound that you've got and you will very quickly find yourself in some form of financial industry. The problem is that you've got a friend for every pound that you've got and you will very quickly find yourself in some form of financial turmoil. Victor, I want to ask you about the trends moving forward because it seems as though there's going to be more and more US investment in English football. But I want to ask you about some of the concerns that people may have about the Americanisation, about some of the innovations that may be brought in and how real you think they might be. So 14 votes, just to give people some background to this, are needed to vote through Premier League reforms. There are 12 US-owned clubs currently in terms of who's going to be in the Premier League next season. Things

like removal of promotion and relegation to provide financial security. Do you think that's something that American owners, if we can lump them all in in one basket, do you think that's something that American owners would be interested in exploring? I think the highest level of sport always have an interest in locking in, you know, locking in their position. There is something extremely favorable to people who know that they have this product that's going to be playing at the highest level year after year after year. And obviously investors love that certainty. The question is whether that is such an integral

part of the game that any gains you get from reducing the risk are lost by the fall in fan interest. And I think that's really the case. I mean, we just see it here. Look how much excitement we are about having a game of minor league teams is what we would call them in the U.S. But I mean, this is the most exciting game going on in the entire, in the entire country today, right? Games between, you know, teams that are about to be relegated. those are the worst games in American sports. Those are some of the best games in sports with promotion and relegation.

So I think you really do risk killing the goose that lays the golden egg. What about things like moving matches overseas? You talked about those stadia that are empty for large parts of the, I mean, mostly in summer when the Premier League isn't taking place but getting those those stadiums with a Few big crowds in them at various points right the season must be attractive now So I don't know if maybe my UK colleagues are gonna disagree with me

But playing a handful of games in foreign countries is not at games account, you know games during your regular season this is not something that ruins your league or ruins your sport and For example, the NFL has had a tremendous time Hosting games in the UK hosting games in Germany hosting games in Brazil all over the world And that's been great for our league and presumably it's been great for fans in the UK There's no reason to believe that playing a game or two by Arsenal playing in New York would necessarily be an awful thing for the English game again.

To work well for the NFL, there's no reason automatically that it should work poorly for the Premier League. I mean, the response to that is that in a climate post-Super League attempt and the fairly emphatic and unprecedented way in which fans of multiple big six clubs campaigned on mass, well, separately and on mass online, and did force change, suggests that I think any proposal like that now is, I think, a long way off. Whether it will ever be enshrined by an independent regulator that the 39th game idea, for example, can't happen, I don't know. But I think those clubs, and let's face it, it would be those clubs who would be the most attractive to an international audience if the

game was moved. I think they are incredibly wary of doubling down on the mistakes of that Super League project. And I think we are still a number of years away from that happening. I agree that there are U.S. owners who would like to do it. I heard Birmingham City's ownership group say exactly that in the buildup to the Wrexham game. And even that was met with a pretty emphatic,

no thanks, we like you, but you need to learn your lessons, get in line, response from Birmingham City fans. So yeah, I think we are quite a long way from that happening. It would be deeply unpopular in this country with football supporters. I think one thing we've learned from the Super League is that just because it would be deeply unpopular doesn't mean that people won't try it on. But with the Super League written in pen, no thank you very much, that effectively sparked the whole independent regulator conversation, I think it would be a pretty dim PR move to try at the moment.

Yeah, also I think there's also complications in terms of Liverpool play at Anfield. So if they're going to have one of their matches which should be taking place at Anfield now being relocated elsewhere, the advantage from playing in front of the Kop, that's dissipated. If we move to a 39th game, well what are those, what's that fixtures going to be? Are Liverpool going to be playing Manchester United or are they going to be playing Bournemouth? That could be the difference between qualifying for the Champions League or not or winning the Premier League or not. As soon as it starts to go into it in any depth, it very quickly unravels.

Kerry, just to pick up on the point that we raised there with Victor about the 14 votes that needed to vote through the Premier League reforms with 12, we think US-owned clubs going to be in the Premier League. If they hit 14, is there a suggestion that the American owners, if there were 14 of them, would be similar enough in their thinking to effectively form, I don't know, a cartel of votes. Without wanting to kind of skate into hyperbole here. I'm not convinced of that. If you take a look at the owners at Bournemouth,

they've been very clear that they don't like some of these proposals. We are dealing with individuals and you could say that we've seen alliances form and unform in the Premier League over the course of the past few years. So just because there are 14 US-based owners, they still have different ambitions for their individual clubs, some of which are to qualify for the Champions League, some of which are to survive in the Premier League, and I don't think that necessarily having a dismissal of relegation. Manchester United and Liverpool and Arsenal owners, they're not worried about whether we have relegation or not because it's not going to affect their clubs, so

they might actually see the benefits of the jeopardy and the drama and the tension that having a relegation battle exists in English football because it does increase the overall viewing figures and they benefit from that. Yeah there's two things here. Firstly, after the Super League, what the Super League showed supporters I hope in this country is that there's more that unites than divides us. I actually, I mean I agree with Kieran completely. In terms of those American ownership groups, I think in general there's more that unites than divides us. I actually, I mean, I agree with Kieran completely. In terms of those American ownership groups, I think in general, there's more that divides them, that unites them. If you are an owner of a club with 14th or 15th as a natural ceiling, you are more likely to be

against the owner of a big six club in terms of their voting patterns, in terms of their priorities. Just because you share a nationality, I think is effectively meaningless. That's not to say that this can't change over time, but I think we're a long way away from there. And in terms of, I think the other important thing to say is, in terms of the changes that US owners could potentially make that would be unpopular, I think we're looking at it wrong if we talk about taking English football elsewhere. I think if you actually look at what's happening, it's that you're changing English football where it is, whether it's the eradication of season ticket holders, whether it's the increase in prices, whether it's, you know, whether it's changing the matchday experience irrevocably for people who live in the local area.

That's where the changes that are unpopular will happen and they will happen I think. I don't think they'll happen abroad. On those those small changes are they things that are likely to happen, do you think? Things like increase in ticket prices, decrease in the number of season ticket holders because you know, peripatetic fans tend to spend more money. That direction of travel is already here. We've seen clubs such as Liverpool who have expanded the capacity of Anfield but they've not increased the number of season ticket holders. We've seen the reduction in discounts given for senior ticket holders at the likes of Spurs and West Ham and so on.

And then I think the move towards dynamic pricing or the resale of tickets at far higher prices involving some form of package. And the reason why that is the case is because it works as far as the clubs are concerned. And it also has to be remembered that all of the Premier League clubs are losing money. So whilst we think of the Premier League as being very successful, it's very successful at bringing money in. It's absolutely appalling at cost control. So I think the Premier League's response to this or some of the clubs is let's try and maximise revenues and treat fans as who want an experience other than perhaps being a local fan who's

been going for 30 or 40 years. To a certain extent, these people have outlived their usefulness as far as the club owners are concerned. Victor, it feels like that's very much an economist's point of view. Yeah, this is exactly what we've seen in the United States for baseball, for example, over the last couple of decades. We've replaced all of the stadiums essentially in the country other than Fenway right here in Boston, but we've replaced almost all the stadiums with stadiums that are much smaller, designed to bring in far fewer fans, but extract more money from each of those fans when they come

in. Again, a decade or two decades, five decades ago, you go to a baseball game in the US, you can get a hot dog, you can get a beer, that's about it. You can get peanuts, popcorn, and cracker jack. We have a whole song about that. But nowadays, you can get every food item possible. We break up our stadiums into luxury boxes and suites and special promotion areas that makes it, again,

much more expensive, much more revenue, but certainly much less attractive to a person who just wants to go see a baseball game. And again, I think we're going to see that in the UK as well for people who just want to go and watch a soccer game. It's going to be increasingly out of reach for a lot of fans. Daniel, the other thing that those season ticket holders and those players who just want to go in and watch the game and not put the spending around the ground. The other thing that they bring is generational loyalty, and they create the atmosphere which the Premier League uses to market itself incredibly well. Is there a danger that the Premier League hits a, and I'm talking about the Premier

League in particular because of the numbers that you know the numbers involved in investment and revenue from the Premier League is there a danger that it hits a tipping point where you no longer have that atmosphere you no longer have that intensity within the grounds that makes it so marketable? I'd go further than that I think we're already some way along that path sadly there are honorable exceptions and there are exceptions at every club on honorable nights or days and there are exceptions at every club on honourable nights or days. Important games, derbies, huge successes, title wins. But in the main, I think we are already moving down that path. And it's not just about atmosphere. The whole point of the project I've done this season about visiting all 92 clubs

is that football clubs aren't just Saturday afternoon and Tuesday evening. They're Monday mornings, they're Friday afternoons, they're Sundays because they exist as community hubs, as pillars of their local area. And if your experience of a club is to fly in, watch a game and fly out, then during that 90 minutes, you are no less than anyone else.

It would be wrong to suggest otherwise. But outside of it, you don't exist in the same way. You don't rely upon the club in the same physical sense. And I think there's a tipping point where, until the point, until a point where that is not a problem, I think you can have a percentage of tourist fans or day trippers at every club and that's fine. And we should expect that because that's how clubs grow. But if you go too far down that line, then you end up inadvertently throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And when you do that, I honestly believe it's a line in the sand event.

I believe you cannot row back from it. Daniel Storey, Victor Matheson, Kieran McGuire, thank you very much for your time to talk about American Ownerships. And of course, some of the issues that we ended up talking about at the end are not specific to American Owners, but fascinating to get that insight on what they can bring

and where the problems may come now or may have come up to now and in the future. Sir Alex Ferguson is the most successful British manager of all time. South Shore has won the European Cup for Manchester United. So how did this apprentice toolmaker from Glasgow become one of the most iconic figures in sporting history? His strength, his character, his determination, the fight in him. Ferguson was every department. He can be persuasive, he can be charming, he can be frightening.

Go down as the best as the simplest. I'm Kelly Cates and this is Sporting Giants Sir Alex Ferguson. I didn't want to feel, but I couldn't feel. Listen on BBC Sounds.