A trio of investors who believe science can cure the ills of football’s stragglers are in pole position to put their theories to the test at one of the storied names of the English game.
High-rollers James Bord and Felix Romer have teamed up with Middle East investor Alsharif Faisal bin Jamil to take the helm of England’s Sheffield Wednesday.
The 38-year-old member of the Jordanian royal family is the consortium’s chief executive.
He holds degrees from Oxford University and Imperial College London in Middle Eastern studies and management, respectively.
Serving on the boards of Dunfermline and Córdoba, Mr bin Jamil is group chief executive of Short Circuit Science. He is a director and former chief executive of Bahrain-based Infinity Sports Ventures, which invests in and manages sports clubs. He holds a white belt in jiu-jitsu and competed on the Abu Dhabi Jiu-Jitsu Pro, or AJP, circuit.
Mr Bord wrote to fans at the time of the Dunfermline purchase to promise a technological revolution that now appears to be the blueprint in England. “You may have heard about our backgrounds in data analytics and artificial intelligence and we are big believers in the impact this technology can have across the club,” he wrote.
Starting with a clean slate is every fan’s dream. Football followers often gather to play a familiar game: ‘name the club you would most like to buy’. It says much about football’s enduring pull, and how it has been transformed, that ownership can be as compelling as on-pitch tactics. Clubs now adorn the business pages almost as frequently as they do the sports sections. These days, followers of the game are just as happy discussing the ins and outs of club finances as they are analysing what unfolds on the pitch. They delight in speculating about which team they would most like to own — not their own, of course, but, if money were no object, which one?
In England, most of the top clubs are spoken for, but there remain also-rans that may, or may not, be available and, if one came on the market, could be worth a punt. The same names recur: Nottingham Forest, Everton, Portsmouth, Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday. There are others, but time and again these clubs resurface. Why? Because they fall into the category of ‘big clubs’, boasting a long trophy-winning heritage, a large stadium and a substantial fanbase.
Simon Jordan, the former Crystal Palace owner and TalkTalk pundit, for one believes the club represents a ‘huge’ opportunity for investors. This is despite the fact that Sheffield Wednesday languish at the foot of the Championship, the second tier, on minus seven points, fully 32 points from safety and seemingly destined for relegation.
Fallen giant
Eighteen points were deducted after the club failed to pay its bills. The owner, Thai businessman Dejphon Chansiri, was unwilling to inject further funds — this despite being a member of the family that controls Thai Union Group, the world’s largest producer of canned tuna. They are among Thailand’s richest families, with a net worth last estimated by Forbes at $575 million.
Whatever the reasons, it was not enough to save Sheffield Wednesday — or, as the Yorkshire club is popularly known, the Owls. That may say something about Chansiri’s willingness to commit, which is certainly how supporters perceived it, protesting loudly against him. Equally, though, it may serve as a reminder of an old adage, often forgotten amid the glamour and glitz of elite football: if you want to become a millionaire, start with a billion and buy a football club.
Undeterred, and doubtless piqued by the description applied to Sheffield Wednesday by Jordan, come Mr Bord, Mr Romer and Mr bin Jamil. They have been named preferred bidders by the insolvency advisers Begbies Traynor. In doing so, they have seen off interest from Mike Ashley, the former Newcastle United owner and retail tycoon, US billionaire John McEvoy, and the Chicago-based Storch family.
It is quite a turn-up for the Bord group. Compared with their rivals, they are the least well-known. In his mid-forties, Mr Bord is a former Citi banker turned professional poker player who won £3 million on the circuit, including $1.3 million for victory in the 2010 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event. Mr Bord went on to work for gambling firms Starlizard and Smartodds, specialising in data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, in San Francisco.
He later founded his own data-analytics consultancy, Short Circuit Science, in 2016. Now based in Las Vegas, the company focuses on climate change, pharmaceuticals and sport, where it has advised Wednesday’s arch-rivals Sheffield United and Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur.
Mr Bord was among a group of US investors who purchased a 37 per cent stake in Spanish second-tier club Cordoba, before acquiring a 25 per cent share in Bulgarian side Septemvri Sofia and subsequently taking over Dunfermline.
“I bought Dunfermline because I love the underdog,” said Mr Bord. “The ambition is to bring back some of their history but also to change the atmosphere at the club. They have a very passionate fanbase that has suffered enough pain and we’d like to bring them some joy.”
Mr Romer is a German-born entrepreneur who lives in Malta and serves as a consultant and shareholder at Short Circuit Science. He also has a background in gambling and experience in financial technology.
“From player recruitment to sports science, we see huge potential to enhance our operations and gain a competitive edge,” adds Mr Bord. “Working closely with our highly qualified backroom staff, we’ll be implementing these tools to support smarter decision-making and ultimately help the team perform at its very best.”
Short Circuit Science’s website states that it is at the forefront of sports analytics, harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and computer vision: ‘Through cutting-edge algorithms, we uncover intricate details about players and teams, offering invaluable insights for performance improvement and strategic decision-making. Our expertise in this field empowers athletes, coaches and organisations to stay ahead of the game.’
Its findings form the foundation for tailored training programmes, effective talent scouting, optimal player development and tactical planning. ‘We deliver instantaneous in-game insights to coaches and analysts during matches. With our advanced AI algorithms and computer-vision technologies, we track player movements, ball trajectories and tactical patterns, providing real-time analysis of the game’s flow.’ It continues: ‘Armed with these immediate insights, teams can make informed decisions on substitutions, formations and strategic adjustments.’
Marginal gains
Mr Bord, Mr Romer and Mr bin Jamil are attempting, quite literally, to short-circuit the vagaries of football by applying science — akin to the ‘Moneyball’ approach. They are using data to extract marginal gains in performance and squad selection in the pursuit of victories, a method popularised by Michael Lewis’s book and the subsequent film Moneyball, which chronicled the success of Major League Baseball’s Oakland A’s.
When Sir Jim Ratcliffe took control of Manchester United, he enlisted Sir Dave Brailsford to deploy similar data-driven methods to those he had used with the Great Britain and Team Sky cycling teams, yielding Olympic gold medals and repeated Tour de France triumphs. “The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by one per cent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together,” said Mr Brailsford.
This approach involved the constant measurement and monitoring of key metrics, such as cyclists’ power output, and training programmes designed to target specific weaknesses. However, what works in baseball and cycling does not necessarily translate to football.
Mr Brailsford is no longer at Manchester United, his methods having failed to make any meaningful impact. The once-mighty club is in turmoil, having sacked its latest manager, Ruben Amorim, and, at the weekend, suffering the ignominy of an early FA Cup exit.
Mr Bord and Mr bin Jamil’s Dunfermline side are faring little better. They sit fifth in the 10-team Scottish Championship on 26 points, well adrift of leaders St Johnstone, who have 45. With only one promotion place available, a return to the top flight will not happen this season.
It will therefore be intriguing to see whether Mr Bord, Mr Romer and Mr bin Jamil can succeed. They will need significant funds and considerable patience. Whether supporters are willing to grant them either remains open to question. As Mr Chansiri and Mr Ratcliffe have discovered — and as Chelsea’s owners are now learning — fans can be fickle and unforgiving: content when the team wins, furious when it loses. More than that, many believe the club is rightfully theirs; that those who own it on paper, despite providing the capital, are merely custodians acting on their behalf.
Mr Bord and his partners may yet succeed. As Mr Jordan observed: “If someone gets hold of [Sheffield Wednesday] who knows what they are doing, it wouldn’t take much to get them up to the Premier League, then flip it and make some money.”
That may sound simple. For now, whatever Mr Jordan suggests, the reality is that the Owls remain a long way from that destination.
