Why Don't Billionaires Buy Non-League Football Teams? 

If I was a billionaire, I'd buy the local team who are conference North, it would literally be real life video game. Ground upgrades, staff hiring, budgets for sqauds. Love it.

Just a cool fact from a lesser known competition : In Bulgaria, the richest man billionaire Kiril Domuschiev bought a 3rd flight team for just 25.000 euros worth of investment. In their debut season in the Bulgarian first league, achieved after back to back promotions, they won the championship. They have still not been dethroned, having won it 11 times in a row. 4 more and they break the European record, though Bayern are on their heels with 10 in a row for now. Check Ludogorets Razgrad FC for more info.

A Greek example of how hard it is to build a fanbase regardless of success: The mayor of Volos, Greece (city of around 150k people), Achilleas Beos created his own club, Volos FC, and lead them to the Greek Superleague within 3 seasons. The only problem: they have literally 0 fans. They play against the best Greek teams in a 20000 capacity stadium with no one in the stands. Volos inhabitants mainly support two historic clubs (now in the lower leagues), Niki Volos and Olympiakos Volos, and no one wanted to change clubs just because of the success Beos' money can get.

Buying a Non League team and slowly building up to the top sounds so much more satisfying than just buying a PL club. It's like playing FIFA, there's much more satisfaction playing with a League 2 club and taking them to the CL than using a 'Big 6' (Soon to be big 7) club from the start.

I remember buying 'Lets make a soccer team'. Creating a local team really appealed to me. Then I saw that the only West Sussex place I could put a team in was Brighton (yes I know) and it was Eastbourne for East Sussex.

21:55 one of the big reasons Hoffenheim and Hopp are hated in Germany is their PR following the promotion to the 2. Bundesliga in 2007. Claiming to be just a normal promoted Club (by Ralf Rangnick) they spent over 20 million € on new players. That was more than any other club in Germany spent on new players except Bayern (and, for comparison, nearly the transfer fee of Thierry Henry on his way to Barcelona).

A guy named Marc White is doing the football manager challenge. He started Dorking Wanderers from absolutely nothing in 1999. They played in the 16th tier and next season they will be in the National League up against Oldham Athletic, a former Premier League team. That would actually be a good topic for a video.

a documentary on the afc Wimbledon on the nine promotions in eleven years, how they’re a fan own club and how they have a stadium in plough lane now. The story of they lost the club, how the F A allowed that and won’t allow that anymore. How they were very close to moving to ireland How they went up the English football leagues. It would be a good documentary video if you can do this. #thepeopleschannel

I think that the lower leagues as a whole needs more revenue-generating options aside from the attendances nowadays. That would go a long way in helping them operate. Maybe some sort of RU-vid or Twitch or Facebook subscription model would the clubs grow without relying on sugardaddies to bail them out.

Day 37: Considering that the last player who played in the miracle of Bern died about 6 months ago, I would really like to see a video about the whole story between Germany and Hungary, especially because it meant so much to at least the German population

A video about the success story of Port Vale since Carol Shanahan took over, considering we just won the playoff final.Her charity work, bringing in Darrell Clark, then the things he went through this season. Plus we were on a winning streak and 1 point off the playoffs and she voted to end the first covid season early.

Comments section: " How about a video about the floodlight bulbs they use in the Austrian Bundesliga?"

I feel like the only way a billionaire is gonna buy a non-league team is if they are a Football Manager fanatic who wanted to play the game in real life.

Gloucester City would be great candidates. They're the largest city in England to have never had an EFL team and play in the National League North; it has a population of about 160.000 so its larger than some Premier League clubs home towns.

I'm an Oxford City fan (conference south). A few years ago, we were bought by some rich Americans, who then pumped money into the squad and built a new stand. Their goal was to take city to the Premier league (I'm not joking! And we're a team who've never played in a higher division than now in our history). The Americans soon bailed though, and were arrested and jailed for fraud and corruption related activities, which left the club massively in debt. We've only just recovered from all this, several years later. The moral is: millionaire owners ain't necessarily the answer, even at non league level.

Three millionaires that come to mind in the UK are Dale Vince at Forest Green Rovers, the late Brooks Mileson who took Gretna from non-league football to the Scottish Premiership and Granham White who tried to buy Colne Dynamoes into the EFL.

Alfie's football knowledge and research eclipses all in this space he is unmatched

This is by far my favourite channel on RU-vid. You deserve serious recognition for the quality and consistency of your uploads man. Legend keep it up 👏🏻

Day 12 - The Fall and Rise of FK Velež Mostar From a Club that has beaten Borussia Dortmund, Twente, Derby County and many others to a club that was forced from their own stadium, reduced to nothing during the Bosnian War, becoming a mediocre top-level team in the 00s to nearly being forced into folding in 2016 to its amazing rise back to the top-level football which culminated in return to Europe after 33 years which has seen elimination of Coleraine before a suprising win over AEK Athens before exiting 3rd Round against Elfsborg IF and recently continuing in the Cup win this season which has ensured another European summer next season

Dammit Alfie that’s Rob McElhenny! Tbh I would’ve expected Alfie to be an Always Sunny fan. Legit a little surprised he’s not.

As a Havant and Waterlooville fan I approve of Alfie using the Hawks as an example. Though to be fair I’ve always respected the Hawks owners as they’ve never spent beyond their means putting the club at risk.

Surprised Rushden and Diamonds didn’t get a mention.

Excellent work as always Alfie.

Really enjoyed this video, cheers Alfie

Woking FC, from non-league to European champions in 12 years, my greatest Championship Manager achievement.

The ending is classic Thanks Alfie!!!

Cool video man. Your research is always top notch!

Hi Alfie, absolutely loved this video. I’d love to see a “what on earth is happening at Valencia?” Video, in light of their president resigning and gattuso being hired.

You are a very smart, informed and well researched guy! Well done!

16:18 attempted to buy St. Pauli. He must be crazy or very ignorant about the club for doing something like that.

LITERALLY EVERYONE! Look up "Diamond Geezers" by Mike Paul, it's an amazingly written saga within Champ Manager 01/02 wherein the dude takes control of Rushden and Diamonds at their lowest ebb, I reckon fans of Alfie would all love it 💎

My old local club Hemel Town recently posted about how they can get more people down to club. Fans were brutally honest with them saying they have Watford, Luton, Arsenal, Spurs, Barnet ect in the catchment area and prices are too high and parking is terrible. No one actually suggested a decent way to combat it though 🤣

Very good video! I watched the whole thing. And I learnt quite a lot by watching this video. 👍

The rich teams buy all the best players and potential players, then because they can not play them all, the players are loaned out to teams in other leagues. This also prevents lesser teams from buying these players and competing in the league. Big money buying and controlling the best talent. For the fan of a mega team, this is fine, but for the local, the real fans of football not so.

You forgot reason number four: the drive to win one of the greatest willy measuring competition.

Hoever? 😀 Eddie Howe called.....he's upset that his name is not being used anymore....

Surely to deal with the fanbase issue billionares could target "phoenix clubs" or "protest clubs" which have established support like wimbledon or fc united of manchester

In short, if billionaires did buy Non-League teams, the fifth tier would turn into a pint-sized Premier League.

Putting out banger after banger. You deserve to get to that 7 figure mark!

Good video and good examples Alfie😊

One blocker would be stadium I suspect. You're never going to get planning permission to build a premier league stadium in Chipping Sodbury or anywhere nearby. At least buying an already established team usually brings with it a decent stadium, often in a well-populated area.

I'm from chipping sodbury and I am absolutely stunned that I've heard you say chipping sodbury more than 5 times, fantastic stuff ❤️

Amazing to see Chipping Sodbury Town featured here! I’ve scored on that pitch and used to play for Chipping Sodbury RFC

I definitely do want to start going to more matches for my local non league club, it’s just difficult to find the time to. Shout out to Middlewich Town Football Club of the Cheshire League Premier Division, hope to be there next season

Your Hoever and Watmore transitions completely send me reeling

LMAST! this was my favourite game of all on PS2. Couldn't afford a PC in 2006. Brings back so many memories. T.Langerak and A.Bruno 👌

If I was rich, I might invest in a club in Cymru (Wales). All of the clubs are tiny so outspending the competition would be super easy, barely an inconvenience. There’s little glamour in winning that league, but it would be a very cheap route to competing in Europe! It’d be amusing to take Cefn Druids or Penybont to Europe to compete with much bigger clubs.

Could you do a video on 7 of the most improved national teams based on Fifa rankings. For example Curacao were 188 and are now 79 with a lot of players coming through playing at a good level

Alfie, you're such a fucking talented writer and your videos are a pleasure to listen to, even more so recently. Keep up the good work x

every time i see the cover art for football manager 2005 i literally cry, grew up on that banger of a game

"Ryan Reynolds and the other person I forgot" ❄

Great watch by the way dude.

Alfie I reckon you'd enjoy the work of the other Wrexham owner...It's Always Sunny if you gave it a chance... it is almost as satirical as you can be!

18:02 Alfie Alfie Alfie... I'm strongly suggesting Rob's show 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia'. It's central to my American culture, as well as being a cynics dream show.

Please can you do a video on Charlton, love your videos

You can't buy a team that's not in a major city and expect the stadium to be full

Mateschitz also went for Markranstädt, because they where in the highest tier that allowed this total re-packaging, because the upper Regionalliga was then organized by the national federation DFB, and the Oberliga Markranstädt was in, is operated by the regional federation NOFV. While DFB and DFL-rules striktly forbid to take the league-spot from another club, the NOFV-rules didn't.

I came here for the football insights. I stayed for the meta-verse tangent😂

That ki jana however joke was lovely

Yo Alfie 😂😂😂😂, the last few minutes were really funny. It's you explaining a different form of a dystopian future. Tesla Torquay United! Virgin Curzon Ashton!

I'm frankly still amazed that MK Franchise have not become MK Red Bull

In Romania there was an interesting case of a guy who was a billionaire at one point - Ioan Niculae - though his fortunes have decreased, who took over a club with a pretty long history, but very little in the way of support or achievements: Astra Ploiești, a club very much in the shadow of former Romanian champions Petrolul Ploiești who dominate the town. Despite establishing the club as a pretty consistent top league team, this did little to boost local support, as the locals continued their support of (a struggling) Petrolul rather than change allegiance. I think there was even a short lived merger between the clubs that didn't work out. He eventually moved Astra about 120km South to Giurgiu, on the banks of the Danube. Giurgiu is much smaller than Ploiești (220,000+ vs about 60,000), has virtually no footballing tradition and, at the time, had no club with even a remote chance of getting to the top league or with any level of support from the locals. He set about expanding and modernizing the local stadium so that it would be able to host European cup matches. Eventually Astra won the title in 2016. It also won the cup once and the (largely irrelevant) supercup twice. They also reached three more cup finals (ironically all hosted at the ground of former neighbor Petrolul). Despite this success and the much improved stadium, Astra didn't receive much backing from the Giurgiu locals and even their biggest matches would usually fail to fill the roughly 8500 seat stadium. Eventually Mr. Niculae's fortunes started taking a turn for the worse and he even landed in prison for corruption and tax evasion. With dwindling financial support, Astra got relegated in 2021. A doping scandal that same year also didn't help matters. They were docked points for both financial irregularities and for the doping incident. This meant they would start the season with a large points penalty and a transfer embargo. They got relegated again. I have no idea if they'll compete in the third league, though their owner is back out of prison on parole. I haven't really kept track of the story.

Thanks for the Ipswich Town shout-out

I'm a season ticket holder at Leeds United but when I go to London I enjoy going to Dulwich Hamlet which makes a nice change. I can stand and watch the match drinking a pint which I can't do at Elland Rd. Billionaires stay out of non league because we like it how it is.

Well, I remember playing Championship Manager those days and brought Charlton Athletic becoming Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup, Champions League, Super Cup, FIFA Club World Cup in the matter of 10 season..

Very enjoyable video.

2:33 fun fact: That Merc guy next to Lewis, if I remembered correctly, is Gilles Pironi. Mercedes-AMG enginer, and son of late Didier Pironi, named after Didier's arch-rival, the (also) late Gilles Villeneuve.

Loved the ending 😂

Video on the 22/23 PL teams, where were they during the inaugural season of the PL (like what division were they in)

Great to see my hometown feature at 17.20 Bellslea Stadium, Mon the Bury!!!

Chipping Sodbury is just what people from Yate say they are from when they inevitably leave the disgusting place

Do a video of the premier league taking a look at their playing careers n world cup team managers

Random fact for anyone interested, the image on 1:20 This is a picture from the 90's I would presume. It's taken from Burgess Park in London (unless somewhere else in England has the exact same layout of park and housing behind ofc). I know this because I lived here ofc, not in the 90's, merely 5 years ago, in the building closer. The closest of the three sections to the park and camera, in the top left corner, that was my living room balcony. You may also recognise it of course from the popular programme "Top Boy" as a lot of it was filmed here. These buildings are gonna be knocked down soon, they already started on the indentical ones down the road and they're all gonna rebuilt into new builds. Which look horrible btw. I'm honestly gonna miss these blocks, are horrible as they were.

In 1995 you could buy a controllong stake in a very traditional, highly supported middle of the table LaLiga team for a million quid. The cheapest team you could by 100% for half of that. LaLiga had some of the best value for money elite foorballers back then. I was only 21 yo back then so the people I pitched the idea laugh me of the room.

Building a club from nothing is not the dream of a billionaire. It's the dream of a fan. I'll take it from the perspective of the greatest investor in history, Warren Buffett. Buffett buys two types of businesses. The first, is a well run profitable business (obviously one not in a dying market), with good management. That's why he owns stuff like Coke. Profitable business, nobody's going to start not liking Cokes, and good management. It's stable. The second business he buys is a good business with bad managers that he can replace with good managers. And this kind is riskier. the first you buy and just leave them alone. It's already profitable and working. A lower league football team by and large is neither of the two. It's not profitable, stable, people very well could stop going like they won't stop buying Cokes and most football teams already have bad management.

Man’s forgetting about Gretnas take over in 2002 by a millionaire who then led them to Scottish cup final and European football

Erm Billericay Town or Lewes are examples of why this idea is hit or miss However if a billionaire wants to invest in Hereford FC then we would love it If you want an example of what happens when investment goes bad, look up what is going on at Staines Town

Alfie. People don’t understand how kit deals manufacturers and deals work. I also genuinely wonder why Nike, Puma and Adidas are the main kit people. Remembering Liverpool’s court case against new balance

Milton Keynes COULD have been a place where someone could have built a team from non-league, but it was decided they should just uproot and existing team as it was easier. The trouble is most places with decent populations already have a league team because they had enough people to sustain a bigger football team. Also fitting to compare Ipswich and MK Dons. MK's biggest attendance for their average was 15k, 6.5k of which were Ipswich fans. Pretty sure if you correct to get just home fans they'll fall significantly more than other clubs.

I played for Beverley Town!

Salford are despised in League 2. I've never spoken to a single fan from a single club that doesn't hate them.

I used to play the lma manager games until they stopped making them until after 2007 so sad that game was stopped

love seeing Southport being used in the video

One simple answer: It's about money and not some passion and That's not good for the business.

I have read that Ebbsfleet United F.C.(Kent) a club which plays in the National League South is example that Foreign ownership and investment does not assure future sucess. The club is since 2013 owned by a group of Kuwaiti investors but without any visible good results since.

First manager game I played, I started at Montrose. Merchandise for the first game comprised of 4 programmes and a pie!

Sierra - Ultimate Soccer Manager series. I also played Let's Play A Soccer team, about 20 seasons worth.

Taking Swindon Town all the way to CL finals would be beautiful :)

Can you do a video on the fall and future rise of Stockport County seeming as they've just got back to the football league in 11 years

In fairness the harrods owner took a lowly Fulham up to the premiership and bought them players like van da sar, saha,boa morte etc tho this was at least 20 plus years ago

did he say man city had one of the largest fanbases in england prior to the oil money? lol

Forest Green kind of fits the bill also, though not grown by billionaire owners. does RB Leipzig really count? On a different note, San Marino was always the best challenge in FM due to the possibility of international consequences when expanding your youth program 😊 managing club and country was awesome. Andorra does kind of do the same thing but too much regulation in the Spanish league like having to put buy out clauses in contracts kind of kills it.

Alfie going off about modern football always floors me 😂

Odd you say it would be easy-ish to get promoted from non-league to Premier League. Salford would have done it if it was easy! Completely glossed over it. The wage cap is a major issue, as is only one automatic promotion place is NLS/N and NL. Would have been good to have heard that covered. Should have looked at Dorking too and what they’ve achieved (sorry if you did this later on, stopped watching 18 mins in)

6:43 Why do billionaires buy sports teams. You missed some reasons that Brits always miss especially regarding Americans owners: It's not profit because unless it's NFL sports teams are crap in terms of profitability. And they can make loads more elsewhere, like hedge funds, bond trading or a basic index fund. United and the Glazers are probably an exception but even then much of the earnings end up spent as transfer fees. NFL is mostly profit. Not transfer fees, wage controls. The profits make EPL look minor. Americans often buy sports teams, one, because they run sports businesses and two status. All the EPL's American owners own multiple sports teams in multiple countries. It's a play thing. They run it for fun. FSG are one of the best examples. One, John Henry is a Hedge fund manager. The money he makes off Hedge funds dwarfs Liverpool's paltry yearly profits. The taking money out of the club thing in his case is simply not the case. It's just a good way for clicks. He runs sports teams as a business. Has a racing team, owns a hockey team, owns a baseball team. That's common in the states. And it gives him high social status. The second reason is status because owning a team puts them in a status that's even well above the super rich. It's an exclusive club of owners. It's a social capital power move. These reasons are the main reasons Americans buy teams not profit. Again, buying and index fund and getting 12% a year is far more profitable way to spend $2 billion with zero work than buying and running a sports team. Which means it's far safer to spend 100 m on a fund than buy a speculative sports team in a lower league.

Who else feels bad for hoffenheim's owner? The guy just wanted to do his best for his local team

Hoffenheim are probably the best real world example of building up a 'big' football club in the middle of nowhere. I know about Ludogorets in Bulgaria, but Razgrad is much larger than Hoffenheim and the league standard much lower than Germany, making the achievement less impressive in my book.

If I was a billionaire I would bough a team in either the National League or League Two, Probably Grimsby town though

I really enjoyed this one

York City ,Bradford City ,Plymouth Argyle. Notts County or a Cornwall club all obvious for investment to improve with a local fan base.