Been a few cases of US ownership of Soccer clubs that have been horrendous and have crippled the clubs.Well, as a Niners fan I can tell you that the ownership group of the Niners are…what’s the word to use…bloody ordinary. Ok that’s two words. Anyway.
The Niners are owned by the York family. John and Denise York and their son Jed (who is also the CEO of the Niners.)
Denise is the sister of Eddie De Bartolo who used to own the Niners through their golden age. He was regarded as the best owner in the NFL but ran into some nefarious legal problems outside of the NFL and was forced to relinquish his hold on the Niners. He wanted to sell them, but his sister Denise and her *smile* husband ended up securing ownership rights after a bitter legal battle. The two are estranged as a result.
The De Bartolo family made its wealth from construction and property activities. Denise and her side of the family are worth about $5 billion USD.
Anyway, Denise’s fwit husband John York - who knew absolutely nothing about NFL football - totally and utterly mis managed the Niners and ran them into the ground. They went through CEO after CEO and coach after coach. The Bay Area hate the Yorks with a passion.
In the end, John York stepped aside and handed the reins over to his son Jed who, thankfully, has done a much better job of running the Niners. But even he has his critics in the Bay Area.
All up….in my personal opinion, based on their track record with the Niners, not a good ownership group for Leeds.
Sunderland a perfect very recent example of being skinned gutted and ruined by Short the US owner, during the horrid years of failure so exquisitely catalogued in "Sunderland Till I die".
Spent no money on players in the EPL they got predictably relegated then they sold off any real quality they had and fell straight out of the Championship through to the 3rd tier, even with their parachute payments from the EP, thats how bad things had gotten for the Black Cats a huge club in English football.
Its taken what odd years to get out of League 1 t back to challenging for the Prem in the Championship as they couldn't even afford the quality of player to get them straight out of the 3rd tier.
UK football is a completely different business and animal what with international trading's and player movements loans spells etc.
If you've got foreign owners especially ones with pockets not as deep as other owners from non Soccer backgrounds, you better have a bloody canny local admin or you're gonna find yourself in trouble most likely sooner than later.