Weakening dollar: US investors will stay away from Premiership clubs

F Stan Kroenke is probably feeling the pinch of the depreciated dollar which is now trading at about 2.1 USD per pound. It would make his monetary pitch for Arsenal all the more dearer. At this trading level a US investor would pay 2 billion USD for an outright sale for Man Utd and a smaller club like Birmingham City would be in the region of 400m USD. A year ago, these figures would have been halved.
Most US sports investors are less interested in tradition than they are in a quick turnaround in their investment. Premiership clubs have a huge following in South East Asia and China which is enjoying a boom and most likely money for clubs will come from that region. Or from Dubai where the investment arm of the government of Dubai was interested in acquiring Liverpool before it was sold to Tom Hicks and George Gillette.
So I expect that the US invasion of soccer clubs in England will slow down and the Chinese who are looking for investments in strong currencies will pick up the slack. They are already strong signals that the Chinese who have bought mountains of US debt in bonds are looking elsewhere for their money. Such worries drive the dollar down further.
On the other hand, English investors might want to think about buying a NFL or NBA team or two. A MLS club would be nice too but then overseas players would be expensive if you had to pay transfer fees in a dollar amount. David Beckham’s transfer fee with the Euro almost trading at 1.5 USD would have been in the region of 15m.

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