When the top 22 teams broke away from the Football League to form the Premier League, 21 were English-owned (Wimbledon was the exception). Now, just over three decades later, there are only three Premier League clubs that are entirely English-owned, with one more that is majority English-owned, two run by Englishmen with minority stakes and one still owned, for a few weeks at least, by a Monaco-based, Anglo-Iranian whose eight-year spell as custodian was generously supported by his Russian-Uzbek patron.
That last one — Everton — should become the
10th American majority-owned club in the league by Christmas, while three
of those other clubs are on the market, to one extent or another. It is
entirely possible that by next November, the 1992 equation will have flipped,
with just one English flagship in very international waters.
Brentford
Brentford’s no-longer secret benefactor Matthew Benham is, in
some ways, a throwback to an earlier era. But in others — his profession, in
particular — the 56-year-old embodies the modern owner.
An Oxford physics graduate, Benham spent a decade working
for banks before he was hired by Tony Bloom (more on him very soon) in 2001 to
work at Premier Bet, a firm set up to take advantage of flaws that Bloom and
others had spotted in the odds Asian bookmakers were offering on football
results.
But three years later, Benham and Bloom spectacularly
fell out, with the former leaving to set up a rival business, Smartodds, and
taking some key staff with him.
A year after that split, Benham read a newspaper article
that said Brentford’s supporters trust was “desperately seeking” support and
duly provided it, under the radar.
In 2007, the trust, known as Bees United, was struggling
with the debts it had inherited from Noades, so Benham paid them off and gave
the trust five years to pay him back, interest-free. By 2009, he was investing
£1million a season in exchange for preference shares. By 2012, after a Bees
United vote, he took full control.
He was now the proud owner of a third-tier club with a
dilapidated ground. Twelve years, two promotions, a stadium move and
£100million of Benham’s cash later, Brentford are solid members of the Premier
League’s middle class.
But Benham, a private man whose wealth is estimated to be
£200million, knows the numbers better than most and has realised Brentford need
someone with deeper pockets. So, he has asked Rothschild, a merchant bank, to
look for a new mystery investor. Nobody has bitten yet.
The only other Premier League club owned by a single
Englishman is Brighton and their owner is Tony Bloom.
The 54-year-old professional gambler and entrepreneur bought
his boyhood club in 2009, when they, too, were a third-tier club in financial
difficulty. Fifteen years, two promotions, a stadium move and almost
£500million of Bloom’s cash later, Brighton are bidding for a seat at the
Premier League’s top table.
Unlike Benham, Bloom does feature in The Sunday Times 2024
Rich List. He is the 233rd richest person in the UK, apparently, worth
£716million, while his gift for numbers has helped Brighton gain an advantage
in player recruitment. The market usually catches up, but, for the time being,
Bloom seems happy to keep spinning the wheel at Brighton.
Globalisation, or at least American ownership, has arrived
in English football and the new owners may not like the fact that franchises
can be relegated and investments damaged.
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