All of the clubs in the Premier League and English Football League could be owned by American investors in the next five to 10 years, according to a football investment expert.
A number of clubs in the top four tiers have either been taken over or received investment from across the Atlantic in the past few years.
Adam Sommerfeld told BBC Radio 5 Live’s Monday Night Club it is a trend he thinks will continue.
“Fourteen of the 20 Premier League teams are LLP [limited liability partnership] minority-owned [by Americans] and at least a third of the EFL are,” Sommerfeld, a sports investment specialist for advisory firm Certus Capital Partners, said.
“I can’t see how all of them won’t have American investment in the next five to 10 years.
“I know what we have in terms of our trend line and our competitors and I’m not aware of a team that hasn’t had a conversation with an American investor in the past few months. Every team is talking to them.”
In 2021, then National League club Wrexham were taken over by American actor Rob McElhenney and Canadian film star Ryan Reynolds.
Since then the duo have helped the side win promotion from the fifth to the third tier of English football, while the club’s profile across the globe has been vastly increased by the Welcome to Wrexham TV documentary.
Sommerfeld said that the relatively low initial investment of between £10-15m to buy a League One or Two club, and the potential to greatly improve its standing, was a “sexy” proposition.
“It gives them the opportunity to prove an investment thesis relatively cost-effectively,” he said.
“These are guys who are super smart, well-financed investors with a lot of ego and bravado and they want to prove that they are up to the challenge of picking up a team in League Two or League One and ‘doing a Wrexham’, getting it through to the Championship and, perhaps ultimately, the Premier League.
“You’d be stunned how many investors we had during Covid who had seen Welcome to Wrexham and Ted Lasso, and said ‘I want to buy a team’.
“The romanticism is a huge part of it. It’s something they [US sports] don’t have with the FA Cup and promotion and relegation. It’s quite sexy and it’s very easy to promote.”
Following the arrival of McElhenney and Reynolds at Wrexham, a number of other celebrities from the world of sports and entertainment have become involved at EFL sides.
