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The World Cup is taking over the United States this summer. But the not-so-secret American takeover of football has been building its foundations for some time now.Some may have turned their noses up at the Hollywood-style theatrics displayed at the Club World Cup, the precursor to what is to come in the next few weeks. But while it may seem like a sudden shift, the fingerprints of American influence on the sport can be traced back decades.As we head into the World Cup, American investment in football on a global scale has never been greater. Thirteen of the 20 Premier League clubs that competed in the 2025/26 season had at least minority American shareholders.That is also the same for 32 per cent of clubs in Europe’s top five leagues, not to mention the growing numbers further down the football pyramid - with Wrexham and Birmingham being prime examples.This is not a coincidence. It is a pattern. But why are Americans so willing to part with their money to invest in a sport that, for years, struggled to break into the mainstream in their country? And are they here to stay?The sport's popularity in the US is growing at an exponential rate. A study from Nielsen has shown that close to 80 billion minutes of football were watched in the USA during 2025 and that 33 per cent of the American population expects their interest in football to grow over the next 18 months.Naturally, when something becomes popular, it causes eyebrows to be raised and opportunities to become apparent. However, to assume this is not a phenomenon that is nearly two decades in the making would be a mistake.When you think of Americans getting involved in English football, the Glazer family or Stan Kroenke may come to mind. Although they may have paved the way, the real opening of the door for the influx of investment from the US can be dated back to 2008.The global financial crisis that year rocked the worldwide economy - the worst since the Great Depression in the 1930s - but in the years since, the American economy recovered at a far quicker rate than those across Europe.As a result, there are more millionaires and billionaires than ever before in the United States. What do you do with that much resource? Invest in a sports team, of course. And the best opportunities for that lie further afield.“If you take a look at the opportunities that are available to them in the United States - NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL - they're all closed franchises. So they're very expensive to get into because there's a limited number of teams. The existing owners are in no hurry to sell,” football financial expert Kieran Maguire told Sky Sports.“It's going to cost you, to buy an NFL team, between $5bn and $10bn. That's going to put off an awful lot of wealthy investors. The alternative to that is to look across the pond.”Look across the pond they have. Of the 13 Premier League clubs with American stakeholders, 11 have emerged post-2008. And the financial appeal is easy to see. The average value of Premier League clubs is lower than the average across the big four American sports leagues.Newcastle, who in 2025 were named the eighth-most valuable team in the Premier League and 19th in world football by Forbes, are worth less than the Columbus Blue Jackets - the lowest-valued NHL team.Given the global reach of football, it may not seem to add up on paper. But there is more than just the scale of the franchises that impacts their value.To hear that a club the size and scope of Newcastle is worth less than a team at the bottom of the financial pile in a league with less reach seems bizarre.Newcastle have more than five times the number of social media followers than the Blue Jackets. St James’ Park has a capacity nearly three times the size of the Nationwide Arena, where the Blue Jackets play. So what is it that holds them back so much?“Investing in American sport is lower risk because you've got guaranteed revenues,” Maguire explained.“You've got the draft system, which helps to redistribute talent and increases competitive balance. So it does give greater opportunities.”Most notably, there is no relegation. Every single owner of an NFL team knows they will be competing in the same competition the following season. It is a key reason why plans for the proposed European Super League gave the founding members that level of security.Furthermore, American sports franchises benefit from being better suited to television. Something that football historically is not.“If you take a look at American sports, they're all designed for television. Talk to people in marketing, football's a really dumb sport,” Maguire said.“Take the Super Bowl. There was a three-hour programme of which there was 11 minutes of sport. There were between 50 and 60 advertising breaks, an average of two-and-a-half adverts per advertising break."You contrast that to football, where you've got 45 minutes with no opportunity to do adverts. The TV companies, therefore, are willing to pay much higher rates for broadcast rights because they can sell those slots to advertisers.”While that might be a problem for owners wanting to maximise their earnings through broadcasting, you cannot just change the format of football from halves to quarters. Or can you?"You have a product which is attractive to the biggest bidders for broadcasting. And where do they get their money from? They get their money from adverts. So we need as many advert breaks as possible. Can American owners tweak that? I anticipate that is the direction of travel," added Maguire.That is not the only way they could seek to make more money off the European game. Chelsea chairman Todd Boehly has previously flirted with the idea of an All-Star game. Sponsored kiss-and-dance cams are prevalent too. It feels very far removed from what most associate with the traditions in Europe but so was Halloween once upon a time.Maguire explained that the perspective of some American investors is that the British do not do enough to 'sweat the asset' they have available to them. They are far too traditionalist and conservative.Fundamentally, it boils down to a clash of ideologies. And over the years it is becoming clear that, more often than not, the fans are having to adjust as opposed to the other way around.The Arsenal Supporters Trust earlier this year described the raising of ticket prices as the "American/FIFA model of squeezing more and more from fans". Manchester United, Liverpool and Everton fans have all protested over the same issue in the past 12 to 24 months - all supporters of clubs with American ownership.The culture Stateside is viewed as being more concerned with entertainment value. Investment expert Adam Sommerfeld, who has worked closely with parties looking to invest in English football, sees the value in such an approach."I've always said they do sports entertainment very well," Sommerfeld told Sky Sports. "They make it about the all-encompassing experience."For pure entertainment, which is really what we're looking for, all fans want to be entertained. You don't want to support your team if it's going to be a 0-0 draw every week."It's bringing a different entertainment product here and I think it's exciting."To say there has not been American investment in other European leagues in recent years would be a lie. Across Europe’s top five leagues, there are 32 clubs with American stakeholders that own at least five per cent. Some of those include big names, such as both Milan clubs, Roma and Atletico Madrid.However, the current climate makes English football a more accessible and profitable arena, as explained by Sommerfeld.“Transacting in Italy has some difficulties. Germany you can’t do it because of the 50-plus-one model, ” Sommerfeld said. “Then you've got France who've obviously struggled with their media deals.”That leaves Spain and England, but while private equity has been allowed in Spanish football since the 1990s, its foundations were built on a socio-model where clubs were founded as member-owned organisations. That remains the case with the likes of Barcelona and Real Madrid.As Sommerfeld puts it, “it's the UK that continues to be the most investable”.History has shown the influx of owners from a certain region tends to eventually drop off before a new dominant force comes into play.Before the American takeover, all the talk was about investment from the Middle East. Roman Abramovich’s acquisition of Chelsea sparked a period of Russian influence even earlier. However, the political and economic climate has a say in what happens next.Sommerfeld went on record in 2024 saying that all EFL clubs will have some form of American investment within the next decade. He believes the current climate only serves to add to that likelihood.“I stand by the comment,” he said. “I think momentum has ever so slightly slowed only because you get that with these cyclical investing trends. And some of the smartest investors come in second. They look to see where the new trend is going.“Chinese investors now can't invest into overseas or European sports assets. It's a government directive. You aren’t going to have the Russian owners buying. Saudi groups won't compete with PIF. Qatari groups won't compete with QSI. It's politically sensitive.“It's hard to see where the next group of investors will come from. It could go full circle and you get a group of English buyers coming back in to buy these teams at massive premiums. I don't see it.“I think it will continue to be American. Private equity, ultra-high-net-worth individuals, family offices, and current team owners out of the big four sports already, cross-leveraging fanbases.”

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Never be satisfied. The words of Andree Jeglertz. His guiding principle for success.Manchester City have completed a first league and FA Cup double, only the third team in the country to do so, all within the first campaign under the judicious Swede.Even he is partly surprised by what has been achieved in year one of his tenure, with the caveat that he was always convinced, from his very first conversation with the club, that major trophies would be a part of their future together. "That's the main reason I wanted to have this job," he tells Sky Sports.Those inside Manchester City describe the subtleties of Jeglertz's style in a nuanced way, making small but deliberate tweaks that have transformed the club's outlook. It was all about installing the habits of champions before having the medal to prove it. About changing the language used. About walking the walk even if it felt unnatural or uncomfortable.In truth, Jeglertz landed upon a squad with the capacity for distinction. They had the tools, just had trouble believing it. His job was to convince them of their readiness to own the narrative around being one of the best, most complete teams the WSL has ever seen.Such swift dominance has been made possible by a collaborative conviction that was absent before. For the first time in a long time, City felt as if they were the ones dictating. The culture has been described as confidently controlled, allowing the football to take care of itself."He's been a massive reason for the culture change, the mindset change," captain Alex Greenwood says. "He listens. He listened to everyone's feelings at the beginning of the season about what was stopping us from getting over the line. It kept coming back to mentality and belief."The 10-year wait between City's first and second title successes is the longest by a team in the WSL. City had developed the unwanted reputation of 'always the bridesmaid' after finishing runners-up six times since the league's rebrand in 2011 - comfortably more than any other side.They had to be rid of that unwanted stigma. And the wait has been more agonising for some than others. "We had been so close before and always fallen short," says Lauren Hemp, who is a WSL champion for the first time in her eighth year at the club."We've played fantastic football at times but even when we've not we find a way to win. We spend a lot of time together outside of football and that has helped the group's togetherness - this is just the start of something even more special."No doubt the benchmark has been pushed this year. City first went top on November 9 following victory over Everton and never surrendered their lead. They were chased but no team came close to threatening. At points across the season they were 11 clear of the competing pack.They went on to match their best-ever points return (55), also equalling their tally of most victories in a campaign (18) and won 100 per cent of home games by an aggregate score of 38-8.Inside the City walls there was, and is, a new kind of calm. A reassurance of possibility and a plan to make it reality. Those who work closely with Jeglertz describe the effect he has had on the team as game-changing, and yet if you probe on the reasons why most will cite quite simple customs.They will tell you he's a good listener, a great communicator, he's welcoming, maintains an 'open door' policy, and he'll never walk past you without engaging in a friendly hello. Above all, he really cares about the person behind the footballer.But the sporting side had to be just as compelling to create hard-nosed champions, and that is what the very talented squad at Manchester City have responded to with most noticeable impact.'We always find a way' is the phrase inscribed on the wall of their brand new £10m complex, the last words players read before entering the training pitches. They were put there deliberately at the request of Jeglertz.Greenwood describes it like this: "We had to change the language we used and be comfortable to talk in a certain way. The manager challenged me, I challenged him. We agreed to speak like we wanted to win the league, because if we don't air that then nothing would ever change."It's uncomfortable to speak like that when you haven't done it, but then it becomes normal. It's a set of standards: perform like champions, recover like champions, eat like champions."This is no longer a side that buckles at the first sign of resistance, and not because they have not faced adversity. They were defeated by Chelsea on the opening day of the season. They lost to Arsenal. They lost to Brighton and then had to labour nervously past Liverpool in a must-win. Top scorer Khadija Shaw had one foot out the door. Splinters appearing.What was the approach on the inside? "In previous seasons I've felt it," captain Greenwood admits, the 'it' being crippling doubt. "This year I never felt like it was creeping in. The mentality is different. Better."Shaw stayed at the club because of it. The striker's dramatic u-turn - on the verge of signing for Chelsea merely a month ago - shows renewed intention. A calculated and ambitious plan to dominate. Never before have City been willing to break from their financial model to sign or retain any player. Shaw's signature sets a new precedent.Speaking to Jeglertz on the topic of transformation is fascinating. "They didn't dare to talk about winning the league at the beginning of the season. I asked why."In this case, the 'why' is multifaceted. Jeglertz represented a clean break from the scars of the past; the baggage that was weighing down a team that had underachieved against its vast potential. The false dawns were forgotten, no longer able to inhibit. "I've seen myself change," says Hemp. "We've been given freedom".Assistance of course arrived in other forms, too: Chelsea unravelled early, Arsenal could not cope with the insane demands placed on them as European holders, and Jeglertz's squad stayed relatively injury free in a campaign with far fewer games than both of their closest rivals. Timing all aligned.But Jeglertz had more than just favourable circumstances on his side. He had the secret sauce: "Never be pleased, never be satisfied." He calls this stoicism boring but necessary."I'm a positive person but the players ask me to show them negative clips because they want to be better. We brought that focus into every training session."When I first started, they were coming to training to be trained. That is the biggest difference I see. The training session after we won the league, I had seven or eight players wanting to stay behind to do a bit extra. That shows me winning mentality."Jeglertz's vision is not exactly revolutionary. He has not ripped up the rule book. But his adjustments have helped elevate City from also-rans to conquerors, discreetly allowing individuals to unlock new levels to their game.At the heart of the Jeglertz way is simplicity, a commitment to getting the very basics and fundamentals that underpin any good football team right."As a captain, he is someone who I've been able to be vulnerable with," says Greenwood. And really, that is what Manchester City were crying out for. A leader with a clear vision but one that empowers and implores to the point of exhaustion.It says a lot about where the club are at right now that every member of staff, from coaches to the medical team to the media crew to players' dogs, were all gathered together to watch the game - Arsenal's draw with Brighton - that confirmed them as champions. They wanted to rejoice as a whole.Jeglertz met them where they were, a team already on course for greatness, perfecting the many strengths that were there all along.He adds: "It was so important to build from where the team started, which was not zero. It's a great squad. I needed to know what was already good and then figure out how I could help."Now we see ourselves as winners, but what is typical for a winner is to always want more. We have to keep thriving this way, with ambition. We've done so many things right this year. We must take time to celebrate that."And after, we look at how we improve again."