Cries to change American soccer have been heard for so many years. The calls for change have included every aspect of the game and ebbed and flowed with the successes and failures of the U.S. national teams. Those calls got louder and more frequent with the failure of the U.S. Men’s National Team to reach the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
Change came in the form of reform candidates for the position of U.S. Soccer President and Vice President, letters of support for promotion/relegation being delivered to FIFA President Gianni Infantino, and a claim filed with the Court of Arbitration in Sport (CAS).
But none of these seems to have even put in a dent in the status quo. However, a new imitative led by a “rockstar” investment group could change the trajectory of American soccer for years to come. The plan involves the purchase of FC Helsingør, a club in the Danish First Division with the idea to develop American talent in Europe.
The group is led by managing member Jordan Gardner, who is a minority investor with Swansea City AFC in Wales and Dundalk FC in Ireland. The consortium also includes Golden State Warriors minority investors Nick Swinmurn, John Burbank, Harry Tsao, and Michael De Anda, a quartet with significant experience in soccer investment. Swinmurn and Tsao have ownership stakes in Swansea City AFC and Los Angeles Football Club, respectively. Brett Johnson and Taylor Reinhardt, investors with Phoenix Rising Football Club and their bid to land an expansion spot in MLS, are also a part of the FC Helsingør group along with Laredo Heat Soccer Club Owner and President Shashi Vaswani.
“When I went about putting the group together a lot of that just happened organically through close friends or contacts or people I knew and trusted, people that I felt could add a lot of value to the project,” Gardner remarked. “I was definitely targeting people who had a background in professional soccer or professional sports, people who understood what it took to be successful in sports. A lot were close friends and friends of friends and that’s really how a lot of it came together.”
The diverse group obviously brings a lot to the table and Gardner plans to be very involved on a daily basis.
“This one first off is much more of an active project,” Gardner commented. “For me my other projects have been pretty passive in terms of time spent and the amount. I’m actually going to have a hands-on role.”
The group has a specific model and an actual plan. It’s more than just providing resources.
“That is much more of a specific business model,” Gardner continued. “The other ones were kind of, we want to invest in the USL team or we want to we’re working on PDL or we’re looking at a club in Ireland or the UK. This is what is done for a specific reason, obviously, developing players and that’s the model.”
The innovative model is one that has produced a number of short and long-term goals.
“In the short-term, it’s about stabilizing the club, getting all the infrastructure in place, getting all the pieces in place here in the U.S. in terms of our scouting networks and relationships,” Gardner added. “The long-term objective is to build the club up, bringing in a solid pool of young American players, developing and moving them on to bigger clubs, proving the model. A lot is about finding the right players and moving them on to bigger clubs so that we’re financially viable. Ideally, we’re moving players on to bigger clubs and eventually they’re making their way to the to the national team. That would be really exciting for us. That’s going to take a while obviously.”
The model involves giving young American players the opportunity to play at high levels in Europe.
“I think you look at the landscape and American soccer right now, more specifically, and there’s a handful of organizations that are doing a good job at various levels of playing our youngest players, but for the most part, that’s not really happening,” Gardner noted. “I think there’s an opportunity; our youngest players need to be playing at the highest levels. And let’s be honest, right now that’s Europe. I think part of our model is to get the kids at the youngest age we can within the FIFA regulations into fully professional European environments, develop them, and hopefully move them on to bigger clubs or honestly move them back to the U.S. It’s about getting our guys playing and developing at a better rate than they are currently doing.”
Gardner does see some positives in the American game.
“I think from a positive perspective, you see certain geographical markets that are really embracing the game. You see it at the highest levels in Atlanta and Cincinnati now and even see that the lower levels, Sacramento and Detroit and Chattanooga, and you see from top to bottom, there are markets where soccer is really relevant and viable. I think the challenges are there’s many more markets where it isn’t relevant for whatever reason.”
Getting talented players more experience at higher levels at a younger age would bring American soccer in line with the rest of the world’s soccer powerhouses. Despite an aggressive Homegrown program in MLS, many top players see the collegiate game as a path to the pros. That path is a lengthy one as prospects are often 21 or 22 when they are ready to move to the next level. In Europe, players of the same age have been professionals for several years. Simply put, the American collegiate system puts American players behind the rest of the world.
But the plan is not without its own challenges.
“One of our biggest challenges is the club we’ve decided to purchase is not a big club, in terms of bringing the best talent over,” Gardner said. “It’s not a big club, it’s something that we’re going to have to reconcile with in terms of being realistic about the type of players we can bring over.”
Gardner pointed out that the actual execution of the plan was the most significant challenge. Another unexpected challenge, one different than what we see here in the States: promotion/relegation.
“It’s both the positive and a negative, right?” Gardner said. “I have an investment in Swansea City, which got relegated last year. FC Helsingør currently is in or out of relegation risk. So, you know, certainly, it creates a lot of uncertainty where you’re going to spend X amount of money you’re going to set up a model we’re opening a new stadium and you could be in a division lower than you expected, and you’re getting much less TV revenue. So, it honestly creates a lot of challenges, especially as you’re going through a deal. You know, on the flipside, it creates so much opportunity that if we do things, well, we’re efficient, we bring in quality players, and we have the opportunity to play in the Danish Super League again, which is the highest level in all of Scandinavia, and one of the top 12 to 14 leagues in Europe.”
Gardner admitted that he could easily discuss promotion/relegation for an hour. He sees it from every angle.
“Everyone kind of looks at promotion/relegation and looks at the promotion,” Gardner said. “Relegation presents its own challenges from a business perspective, but from an entrepreneurial background, I like the idea of challenges. The system challenges you to do a better job. If you don’t, if you’re not good at recruiting players, if you’re not good at putting a good product on the field and doing well on the business side, then the risk is you get relegated and so I like that kind of incentive that you have. It kind of lights a fire under you.”
It’s not like projects like this are common and come around every day. This is a big deal. But why choose Denmark?
“I looked at quite a few different places,” Gardner said. “Other Scandinavian countries were interesting. Sweden in particular was interesting, although they have a 50+1 ownership restriction, very similar to Germany. So that was something that didn’t work for us. We needed a model where we were able to acquire a majority stake of the club so we could execute our model. I looked in Belgium, looked at a couple other places, and the models just weren’t right for whatever reason, whether it was cultural or whether it was financial, or we couldn’t find a club that was a decent financial shape.”
Denmark has a lot going for it in terms of its status as a footballing nation and a place for developing players. Gardner compared the level of the Danish Superliga to that of MLS. Even though it is a unique and foreign environment, American players have had success there and it is, after all, a country with English speakers. The idea is that the experience would be of a high level, while the transition would be relatively low.
Everything says that the plan should be a tremendous success. Even though he’s doesn’t want to be considered the savior of American soccer, Gardner is certainly someone that can create positive change and make his impact felt for years to come.
“I don’t like to think that anything we’re doing is going to save American soccer, but what we want to do is at least try to make a dent in things that are being done in a way that doesn’t make sense,” Gardner concluded. “I mean the model in Europe is just so different, from the promotion relegation to the player transfer market, everything is just so different. I don’t think anything we’re doing is going to change the ball on American soccer, but if we can help these kids and put them in a better environment to develop as players and as people. I think that’s, that’s really what we’re going for.”
