Jordan Spieth interested in a British soccer adventure. The golfer told Postmedia that he has had his eye on sports franchise ownership for quite a while.
“I always thought it would be cool to get involved in sports franchises and it’s difficult to do in the states and there is a lot of turnover in football over here,” Spieth told Postmedia on Sunday at Royal Liverpool ahead of the Open Championship. “A lot of different people are getting involved, so it looked like a cool opportunity.”
On Wednesday, ahead of the Scottish Open, Spieth confirmed to Sky Sports that he and fellow golfer Justin Thomas have purchased shares in the 49ers group taking over Leeds United. Rickie Fowler was also interested, but pulled out after Leeds was relegated from the Premier League. The relegation didn’t affect Spieth’s interest in the deal.
“We were really involved watching pretty much every game this new year and they ended up getting relegated and then they renegotiated for a price and the deal started almost looking even better and hopefully they get back up really soon,” Spieth said.
Spieth said that he knows “quite a bit” about the game and has been following soccer more intently for the last three or four years. As for how he became involved with the 49ers group, there is a baseball tie in this multisport arrangement.
“They have a guy named Michael Schwimer; he used to pitch in Major League Baseball and I used to train with him,” Speith said. “He kind of went and got some current and former athletes who might be interested. We had some meetings about it over the course of last fall and winter and decided to go through with it.”
Is the golfer hoping he and his pal Thomas will follow in the footsteps of actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s success with Wrexham AFC?
“They were able to purchase the entire team,” he said. “We’re just little guys.”
