Skip to main content

Americans take over at Dagenham & Redbridge

Dagenham and Redbridge are currently struggling in the National League but this has not deterred an American consortium that also involves former Manchester United and Everton goalkeeper Tim Howard from taking them over: Purchase

Victoria Road LLC, a group jointly owned by the businessmen Peter B Freund and Craig Unger, have purchased a majority of shares in the club. Freund is the principal owner of Trinity Sports Holdings, which holds interests in Major League Baseball's New York Yankees and the recently formed Memphis 901 football club.

What interests me is the thinking behind this takeover. Smaller clubs in London can have a struggle. Leyton Orient are now playing in the National League, admittedly after a disastrous period of ownership.

Barnet have yo-yoed backwards and forwards between the Football League and the top tier of the non-league pyramid. Last season they were relegated to the National League once again. Barnet were first promoted to the Football League in 1991, after winning the 1990–91 Football Conference under manager Barry Fry. In 1993 they reached the Football League Second Division, then the third tier of English football, but were relegated after one season. They were relegated back to the Conference in 2001, but returned to the Football League four years later after winning the 2004–05 Conference National. They then spent the next eight seasons in League Two before being relegated to the Conference once again in 2013. In 2015, they returned to the Football League once more, after winning the 2014–15 Conference Premier.

Last year Dagenham & Redbridge had an average attendance of 1,464 in the National League. Their immediate catchment area is one of the less prosperous parts of London. Quite a lot of those interested in football support West Ham, although they have sometimes treated Dagenham & Redbridge as a second team.

No doubt they were not expensive to acquire, but writing a strategy for success on and off the pitch would be a challenge.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

Senior figures at Tottenham Hotspur insisted on Friday that they had not been informed of any deal to sell Daniel Levy’s stake in the club. A business group, Eight Sports Capital — which is said to include a billionaire Taiwanese financier — claimed that it had an agreement in place to buy a 24.99 per cent stake in ENIC, the club’s majority owners, from Levy, who owns 29.88 per cent. The Times has been told Ng Wing Fai and Brooklyn Earick form part of the group, having both been linked previously to potential takeovers of the Premier League club. The Taiwanese businessman, Richard Tsai, is also said to be part of the consortium. He is reportedly worth £7 billion.  Last year Earick, the former DJ and tech entrepreneur, was part of an attempted £4.5 billion takeover, which was “unequivocally rejected” by Spurs.  An ENIC spokesperson said: “We can confirm that neither ENIC nor THFC are aware of any sale by Daniel Levy’s Family Trust of its minority stake in ENIC, THFC’...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spurs CEO attacks luxury training base

The Tottenham Hotspur chief executive Vinai Venkatesham has issued a withering assessment of the way the club was run under Daniel Levy, likening the state-of-the-art training centre to a five-star hotel rather than a centre of high performance.  Venkatesham was appointed to his role in April 2025, having stepped down as chief executive at Arsenal the previous summer. However, he has said that some aspects of the club were “in a significantly worse state” than he expected.  “Our training centre is amazing, one of the best, if not the best in the world,” Venkatesham told BBC Sport. “But when you look around, it looks more like a five-star hotel than it does a performance environment. That will change over the summer. I think there are many areas where the club hasn’t got the right level of expertise.”  He explained that the football side of operations was the club’s main downfall when he arrived last year. [One Spurs fan wryly observed that it was like a water company sayi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fulham requires big funding from owner

After lengthy delays, Fulham’s shiny, new Riverside Stand has finally opened, creating “a unique Thameside destination with first class facilities for supporters and partners on match days, as well as for the wider community year-round”. This ambitious project has increased Craven Cottage’s capacity by around 4,000 to 29,600, while it has also taken advantage of the club’s fantastic location and wealthy catchment area by including two Michelin star restaurants, a rooftop swimming pool, corporate hospitality and event space, all benefiting from views of the Thames. Chief executive Alistair Mackintosh observed, “Fulham is the sort of club that can have a business class or first class and have fans that turn left on a plane.” Indeed, there is also an exclusive members club – with a football season ticket as an optional extra. It’s fair to say that “the times they are a-changing”, as this is a long way from the traditional pie and a pint. However, in a world where clubs face the tw...
Post a Comment
Read more