Business of Sport: Hibs owner on trying to topple Old Firm + Hostile takeover at Rochdale

The Athletic FC Podcast

The Athletic

Football, Soccer,, Sports, Soccer

4 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2021

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mark Chapman and The Athletic's Matt Slater take a trip north of the border as they are joined by Hibs owner Ron Gordon, who has a fascinating story. Arriving in Edinburgh via a life that started in Peru, passed through Laos with the CIA, before becoming a successful media entrepreneur in the US, he joins us with insight into why he bought the club, the challenges of trying to compete with Celtic and Rangers and his thoughts on the growth potential for Scottish football as a whole. We're also joined by the Rochdale chairman Simon Gauge after a tumultuous few months that has seen the club trying to fend off a hostile takeover by two businessmen, but with the takeover having fallen apart we get an update into exactly what went on and have a wider discussion about the threats many EFL clubs face from potential new owners and the challenges the EFL has in trying to adequately assess the suitability of anyone wanting to buy a football club. And staying with the subject of ownership wrangles, Swindon Town have also been the subjected of a protracted row over who owns the club so we speak to newly appointed CEO Rob Angus for the latest and get some insight into what it's like to go from working in banking to all of a sudden being charged with running a League Two football club. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The athletic. Hello I'm Mark Chapman welcome to the business of sport on the athletic
0:14.7	joined as ever by the athletics Matt Slater and we'll look at a trio of football
0:19.1	clubs today with contrasting fortunes. We're going to start north of the border with Hibernia,
0:24.0	who sit top of the Scottish Premiership
0:25.8	and we'll talk to their own and Ron Gordon
0:28.2	about the unique challenges of trying to run a successful football club in Scotland and compete at the same time with Celtic and Rangers.
0:36.1	Then we'll move down to League 2 in England with two clubs you've had turbulent summers,
0:40.9	Swindon and Rochdale. Both clubs have been embroiled in ownership
0:44.8	roused and face financial difficulties. So we'll talk to the Swindon CEO Rob Angus and also the
0:50.9	Rochdale Chairman Simon Gage. This is the business of sport on the athletic.
0:59.8	Well start in Scotland it's been a good start to the season for Hibs.
1:03.0	They found themselves top of the table, even though it's early in the season.
1:06.4	We'll start in Scotland, it's been a good start to the season for Hibs.
1:09.4	They found themselves top of the table, even though it's early in the season and we're joined by their owner
1:14.7	Ron Gordon Ron thanks for joining us just take us back to the start then and what
1:19.4	attracted you to become the owner of Hibbs back in 2019?
1:23.6	Well, I mean, for starters, to be honest with you,
1:25.6	Hibbs is a fantastic club.
1:27.0	It's just a really incredible club in terms of its heritage,
1:31.2	history, its fan base, the assets that are in the club already.
1:36.3	Easter Road Stadium is an incredible venue.
1:39.4	Then we also have an 80 acre training center and facility that is not fully developed but also gives us a tremendous amount of potential.
	...

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