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

Football Daily

BBC

Soccer, Sports, News, Sports News, Sport

4.3 • 4.5K Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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.

Transcript

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0:00.0	No, but Tom, he says to me, what are you wearing?
0:04.2	He's like, you look ridiculous.
0:05.6	His invite said yoga party.
0:07.5	You were spot on, bro.
0:08.4	No, no, no.
0:09.1	His text auto-corrected.
0:11.0	So what was it meant to say then?
0:12.4	Toga party.
0:13.8	What?
0:14.2	Oh no.
0:14.6	So they all came as Romans.
0:16.4	Well, I never thought of it like that.
0:18.5	You About? Join me, Roman Kemp, and me, Tom Gremlin, for our weekly catch-up, otherwise known as a podcast.
0:24.9	You About?
0:25.6	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:29.7	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:34.1	The Football Daily Podcasts on BBC Sounds. On the pitch, clubs owned by Americans are currently
0:41.2	dominating the English game. Liverpool, owned by Fenway Sports Group, have just won the
0:45.5	Premier League. Arsenal, part of the Kronky Family's sporting empire, are currently in second.
0:51.0	Both Leeds, owned by San Francisco-based 49ers Enterprises, and Burnley, owned by
0:56.0	ALK Capital, have been promoted from the championship already, which brings the number of clubs
1:00.4	in the Premier League next season with US shareholders to at least 12. In League 1, Birmingham City
	...

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