David Beckham and Gary Neville plan to raise Salford City to new heights after completing a takeover of the Ligue Deux team as part of a new consortium that has committed to inject large funds.
Beckham and Neville already owned the North West Club – currently playing in the fourth level of English football – with other former Manchester United teammates, nicknamed the “92 class”.
Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Phil Neville and Paul Scholes have abandoned their issues, but will continue to occupy various positions in Moor Lane.
Since the departure of the majority shareholder Peter Lim in 2024, Beckham and Neville have spent months looking for investment partners who, according to them, have given Salford the best chance to succeed on and off the field.
Among the options they considered, there were multi-club models and a direct owner, but they were estimated not to present “authentic” opportunities.
Beckham and Neville finally decided to join Declan Kelly, founder of the American advisory firm Consello, and Lord Mervyn Davies, president of the Lawn Tennis Association. They co -chair the Salford board of directors.
Other members of the New Salford property group
- Frank Ryan (co-president, co-PDG, president of the Americas, dla piper)
- Shravin Mittal (founder of Unbound)
- Nick Woodhouse (Executive Vice-President, Authentic Brands Group)
- Colin Ryan (founder, clipper Street Capital)
- Dream Sports Group (Indian Sports Technology Company)
The collective would have raised around $ 15 to 20 million to stimulate Salford’s sporting and infrastructure ambitions over the next five years. Inside this period, they target the promotion of the championship.
Each member will hold a participation of 5%or 10%, totaling 80%. The remaining 20% was reserved for additional partners.
None of them will have a daily involvement – interviews take place to appoint a director general and this person will lead things on the ground – but their influence should feel like everyone else.
“I will be on all the major decisions that are made and each small decision made,” said Beckham, who is also a co -owner in Miami in Major League Soccer, in Athletics during an exclusive interview. “This is what my commitment is towards Gary. This is what my commitment is to the club. ”
After the initial acquisition of 2014, Salford experienced a spectacular increase which included four promotions in five years. However, they have not climbed the ladder since then and finished just outside the playoffs this season.
“We certainly do not do it to laugh and it is not for the romantic side of things,” continued Beckham. “Yes, we care about the club – but we do it to win. We want Salford to succeed and have been successful, but we want it to go to the next level.
“I always dream big so I’m going to always want us to get to the top of football and that we are in the Premier League. But there is a lot of hard work and a lot of investments to make until that time.
“The championship is a league in which we want to enter, but it is step by step. We want to succeed very quickly, but these things take time.
“There is a reason why we are not going to go up this year. So what is this reason? How do we solve it? And what should we do around the team, the manager and the club to make sure we are successful?
“But if we can do this, forward and advancing quickly and being in the championship, that’s what the dream would be.”
The progress of Wrexham and Birmingham City under their own donors serve as examples of what possible to achieve.
“We were all inspired by what Ryan Reynolds did to Wrexham and I do not say that this is why we do it because it is not the case,” adds Beckham. “But I spoke to Ryan so many times now and he said that the feeling around the city, the feeling around the club, is so exceptional. This is the kind of thing we want to create.
“Tom Wagner and Tom Brady have done an incredible job with Birmingham. I went to a game a few months ago and the atmosphere in the stadium was one of the best I have seen for a long time. This is what we want to create. We want to create this community, add to the community and the base of fans that we already have – and then lift it.
Beckham attended the Liminge League One of this season between Birmingham and Wrexham with Brady (Alex Pantling / Getty Images)
“When you see what Toms do, there are investments, there is a plan and it would be the dream of talking about the growth of Salford City.
“It is not only growth in the field, which we care the most, but we want success. Because if we are successful, we also have the opportunity to say: “Now we will invest, we will now get a larger stadium, we will now get a larger training installation, then it will continue. This is what we are targeting.
“We are not going to turn around and say,” Ok, there is a lot of money, we have no plan but we have the money and now we are going to look for the players “. This is not how we work in business. It must be durable.
“It must be a real plan around the club because we want to be taken seriously on the field, first, then on the commercial side. We do not want to look stupid or make the mistakes that others have in the past.”
Salford’s trip was told in a back -to -back television program in 2015 and they intend to progress commercial projects to propel income. The objective is to reverse the tendency to make a financial loss.
“I think we were the first to have a Fly-on-the Wall documentary series,” said Neville. “This model has been saturated by many clubs. I think we are going to advance this with another type of content and production model.
“I am very convinced that owners are only guards of football clubs for fans and that the idea is that fans should have behind the scenes of what people do in the club. It is almost like a public company and that it should be treated as such because of its importance for the community.
“We have never been shy to come forward with regard to the content of the club and it will be the same thing to move forward. But there are different innovative ways that can be made, which is not only a right documentary.
Neville has been involved in Salford since 2014 (Naomi Baker / Getty Images)
“We must succeed in the field, we must invest in the region and we must also examine our infrastructure; The stadium and the training field. We have invested a lot in the past 10 years and we will invest again heavily in these next four or five years – but we must obtain this club on a financially financial basis and obtain a balance in this club.
“There are very good examples of clubs in Ligue two, in Ligue 1 and in the championship which are almost durable, with a little funding from owners. They have created a model of trading players and sources of financial and commercial income which means that they can look at things slightly differently and succeed, while being more durable.”
What the pair seems fiercely determined not to lose sight of is the initial reason why they have formed an association with Salford and for Beckham in particular this link is considered its heritage in British football.
“I grew up in the East End of London but I moved to Manchester at the age of 15 and I lived in Salford; I bought my first house and it is the first house in which Victoria and I lived together, ”recalls the former captain of England. “I trained in Salford for many years at the cliff. So it has always been a special place from the first day.
“Having a club in a place where I grew up as a young child means so much. Salford is actually everything I love in football. Real people, real players, a difficult league, difficult players.
“We are still talking about Manchester United as a family club. I always go back now and I meet people who worked there when I arrived at 10 years old.
Neville concludes: “Many people talk about outing strategies when they invest in a company, but it is a football club, a sense of duty, loyalty and love that have grown up in the past 10 years watching every Salford match.
“David and I are not majority owners, but the importance of accessibility, taking care of the local populations, taking care of fans, investing in the region, ensuring that we do it for the right reasons and that the people who come with us for the right reasons is the reason why we have chosen this path.”
(Top Photo: Dominic Lipinski / Getty Images)
