American Money Controls 11 Premier League Clubs, and Football Is Not the Point
US capital now controls 11 Premier League clubs, and it has reached into UEFA commercial rights, broadcast distribution and the financing of player transfers; with media-rights income at its ceiling, it keeps playing by pushing valuations up and rolling assets through evergreen funds.
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A phone call from Trump turned a red card into a suspended sentence
At this year's World Cup knockout stage, an American player picked up a red card that should have carried a one-match ban. Trump is said to have called FIFA president Gianni Infantino, after which the punishment was suspended for a year. The Wall Street Journal's read is that Infantino needs the World Cup staged in North America for the exposure and commercial revenue it brings, which is why he has gone out of his way for years to accommodate Trump's preferences. The episode is the way in: it is not only FIFA — across European football, the Premier League and the big five leagues alike, there are Americans looming behind it all.
— MahuaMore than half the Premier League is now under American ownership
Of the 20 clubs in the Premier League today, 11 are American-controlled, including Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea from the big six. The investment happened mostly after 2008, and more than half of it after 2018. The reasons: US quantitative easing flooded the system with money that needed assets to absorb it; parts of Europe hit by the financial crisis recovered slowly, leaving football assets valued in a trough; and around 2020 the pandemic shut the game down, clubs ran short of cash, and American money bought the dip in volume. The American owners do not treat a club as a standalone asset — they slot it into their own sports portfolio, alongside their NFL and NBA teams.
Ipswich shows a small club can pay a bigger multiple than a giant
In 2021, GameChanger Twenty, led by a US pension fund from the state of Arizona, bought Ipswich — then in League One — for GBP 30 million. In 2024, another American private equity firm paid GBP 105 million for a 40% stake, which amounted to pure profit of 2.5 times the original acquisition cost for the early investors. That same year the club was promoted to the Premier League: shirt sales went from 10,000 a year to 100,000, and season revenue from GBP 13 million to GBP 155 million. American consortia do not have to buy a giant; a small club can deliver a high multiple by climbing the pyramid and building out its commercial side.
— MahuaThe Glazers' leveraged buyout was designed to drain the club
In 2005 the Glazer family bought Manchester United in a leveraged buyout worth GBP 790 million, putting in only GBP 270 million of their own money and borrowing the rest. For more than 20 years they have paid only the interest each year and never repaid the principal; now they have taken on new debt at a rate of 5-point-something to pay off the old debt. As of the end of 2024, they had extracted GBP 1.2 billion from Manchester United, counting dividends, board compensation and share sales. Meanwhile Old Trafford has gone unrepaired for years — a leaking roof, a rat problem — and it lost the right to host matches at Euro 2028. This playbook became the template for American acquisitions of European clubs, and the origin of Manchester United fans' accumulated grievance.
— Zhang BinArsenal mortgaged 25 years of ticket sales to build a stadium
Arsenal spent GBP 450 million building the Emirates Stadium, using asset securitisation to package the next 25 years of matchday ticket revenue into bonds and raise GBP 260 million upfront. To service that debt, Arsenal spent years counting every penny in the transfer market and was forced to sell its captain, until Stan Kroenke took full ownership and restructured the debt, easing the interest burden and restoring the club's ability to sign players. Shvaryov points out that matchday revenue today accounts for only about 20% of a big six club's income — but 20 years ago broadcast revenue was nowhere near as high as it is now, and the people who decided to build the stadium did not foresee that media rights would replace tickets as the largest revenue source.
— Shi HualunChelsea's owners bought at too speculative a moment and it blew up
In 2022, a consortium led by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital took Chelsea off the sanctioned Roman Abramovich's hands for GBP 2.5 billion. They carried over the American approach, signing players to 8-to-10-year contracts to stretch the amortisation period and shuffle the accounting, buying in a dozen to twenty players in one go. This exploitation of a loophole led the Premier League to change the rules repeatedly afterwards to close it. The result: Chelsea's results swung wildly, at worst finishing 12th, with 50 players crammed into the training facilities. Shvaryov's view is that the owners entered at too speculative a moment, and that in the Premier League every move is watched by the media — under that level of exposure, the playbook failed.
— Shi HualunAmerican capital sits at every gate the money passes through
American penetration of European football goes well beyond the clubs. In 2012 and 2013, the US agency CAA took over commercial rights for UEFA's national-team competitions. In 2024, Relevent Sports took the commercial rights to the three club competitions away from Team Marketing, effective from 2025. Broadcast platforms often have American money behind them too — DAZN, for instance. Even instalment payments on player transfers have been turned into factoring products, with banks discounting the receivables for cash; those financial instruments come mainly from JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. Zhang Bin's summary: every time money changes hands inside European football, there is an American at a tollbooth taking a cut.
— Zhang BinWith media rights capped, the returns now come from the valuation game
Premier League domestic broadcast revenue, adjusted for inflation, is down 31% from the 2016-19 cycle, while player wages and transfer fees keep rising — cost pressure is going up. On revenue and margin, a football club is not a good business; American capital relies more on the valuation game: push the asset's price up, then exit through a consortium, retail sales of 1% slices, or perpetual rolling ownership in an Evergreen Fund. In theory, as long as there is always a next buyer, the valuation can keep being bid higher. Zhang Bin's caution: this is essentially the same as trading concept stocks on the A-share market and distributing at the top — it requires finding buyers who are still willing to step in.
— Zhang BinIn their own words · checked verbatim
After US President Trump made a phone call to FIFA president Infantino, the punishment for that red card was suspended for a year.
美国总统特朗普给国际足联主席英凡蒂诺打了一个电话后，这张红牌的处罚被暂缓一年执行。
Mahua0:00
And with a club like Manchester United, the debt is very high right now, so this is a fairly good moment for them to exit, and the valuation is fairly high too.
而且像曼联这种俱乐部，现在也是债非常高，这是他们可能退出的一个比较好的时间点估值也比较高。
Zhang Bin4:09
For these 20-odd years, all he pays each year is the interest on the loan. But the principal — he never repays that.
就是他这20多年每年只还借款的利息。但是他本金呢他从来不还。
Zhang Bin24:09
If all you want is to win trophies, then as a businessman, I would never get involved.
如果你只想赢得冠军，那么作为一个商人呢，我永远都不会参与进来
Mahua45:31
A lot of the time football is exactly like this — it's a game where the winner is king and the loser is nothing.
足球很多时候恰恰就是这样的，就是一个拳王败寇游戏
Shi Hualun46:19
If you cancelled all of these commercial elements, or there were no commercialisation at all — would the match be better? Of course it wouldn't.
如果把这些商业化的元素…都给他取消掉，或者没有从么商业化。那这个比赛会变得更好嘛。那肯定不会啊。
Figures
| American-controlled Premier League clubs | 11 of 20 | 6:21 |
| Glazer purchase price for Manchester United | GBP 790 million | 23:09 |
| Glazers' own money put in | GBP 270 million | 24:09 |
| Extracted from Manchester United by the Glazers (as of end-2024) | GBP 1.2 billion | 25:13 |
| Cost of building Arsenal's Emirates Stadium | GBP 450 million | 31:47 |
| Raised by Arsenal's asset securitisation | GBP 260 million | 31:47 |
| Valuation change since Fenway bought Liverpool | GBP 300 million to more than GBP 4 billion | 49:30 |
| Premier League domestic broadcast revenue (inflation-adjusted) | down 31% from the 2016-19 cycle | 1:06:28 |
Glossary
- Leveraged Buyout
- Acquiring a target company with borrowed money, then repaying the debt out of the target's own cash flow or assets.
- Asset Securitization
- Packaging future cash flows (such as ticket revenue) into bonds sold to investors, raising the money upfront in one go.
- Evergreen Fund
- A fund with no fixed end date that investors can enter and exit, suited to holding sports assets for the long term.
- Super League
- The proposed top-tier competition with fixed membership and no promotion or relegation, said to be driven by American financial power.
- Matchday Revenue
- Income from tickets and in-and-around-the-stadium spending on the day of a match.
How to listen
Cross-border investors, sports-industry founders, and fans following the commercialisation of the Premier League — above all anyone who wants to understand how capital makes money through acquisitions and financial instruments.
The stretches on fan culture and the argument over commercialisation can be skipped without losing the chain of capital.