Promotion party for U.S. owners – but can Leeds and Burnley survive? Plus: Man United keen on Cunha

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Hello! Leeds United and Burnley have regained their seats at England’s top table. It’s standing room only on the streets outside.

@manjsingh92 on X

On the way:

🇺🇸 Promotion party for U.S. groups

🆕 Man Utd make move for Cunha

💰 Why Modric chose Swansea

🥊 Serie A title play-off potential

Back in big time: Leeds and Burnley promoted to EPL as U.S. owners face big calls

(Getty Images, illustration: Eamonn Dalton)

Any amount of time spent with Leeds United — and my 18 years in their orbit was shorter than many other people’s — will teach you one thing: they don’t tend to take the stairway to heaven without wading through the depths of hell first.

The ‘scenic’ way usually is the Leeds way, but not so yesterday. Yesterday, they made life easy by firing Stoke City into the sun, routing them 6-0 to secure promotion from the Championship. The club are back in the Premier League. Another American owner is joining (or rejoining) the party.

49ers Enterprises — the investment vehicle controlled by the San Francisco 49ers and the majority stakeholder at Elland Road — didn’t set out to run a Championship team. It sought a top-flight acquisition but changed its plans after Leeds were relegated in 2023. Two seasons in England’s second tier have been expensive, largely because Championship clubs are money pits. In 2023-24 alone, Leeds lost £60million ($80m).

Promotion, though, means Premier League revenue, which in turn creates big opportunities, just as it did when Leeds last went up in 2020. If recent briefings are accurate, the 49ers will press the button on the long-overdue stadium development soon. Leeds have a long summer now in which to reorganise their squad, ready for the sharp jump in levels.

They built a talented roster for manager Daniel Farke (the detail about captain Ethan Ampadu’s attitude towards bonuses, contained in Beren Cross’ inside read, says a lot about the ethos in the dressing room, too), but it’s a talented Championship roster. Costly upgrades will be essential to make them competitive.

Minus that, the threat of relegation will be very real again. They learned that lesson two years ago and the Premier League has been no less forgiving since. But Leeds suit England’s top flight. I’m one of the people who think the division is enhanced by their visceral presence. And much as we said this last time, yesterday could be the start of something good.

Championship specialists?

Thirty-five miles to the west of Leeds, another promotion party broke out last night. Burnley are heading back up, too, driven by their own owners from the United States. It’s taken them just one year to right the wrong of relegation.

Burnley’s shareholders, among them ex-NFL star JJ Watt, were probably more philosophical about the threat of time in the Championship when they bought in. Historically, Leeds have carried great clout, but Burnley are every bit as deserving of promotion. Over 44 games, they’ve conceded 15 goals. You have to read that stat twice to digest it.

As with Leeds and Farke, who raised a laugh by promising to celebrate like “a fire beast”, what they face now is a question over head coach Scott Parker. Neither he nor Farke have cut it in the Premier League previously and there is an increasingly stark trend of teams going up coming straight back down, almost as if sides need a specialist in the Championship and another in the division above.

Common sense says Leeds and Burnley deserve a chance, but big decisions are upon them already. Although their promotion parties are less than 24 hours old, next season waits for nobody.

• Sixteen-year-old Harry Gray made his debut for Leeds yesterday. He’s the brother of Archie, Tottenham Hotspur’s £40m signing from Elland Road last summer, and the nephew of Leeds legend Eddie, the latest member of the extraordinary Gray dynasty. You need to know about this young goal machine because those in the know say he’s going to be big.

News round-up

Wood from the trees: Forest win tightens Champions League race

The irony of the Premier League offering up five Champions League qualification places this season is that it ought to have made the scramble for them less stressful. There’s more to go round. An extra slot takes the pressure off. Or so it seemed.

(Sky Sports)

Instead, we have three points separating third position from seventh and five clubs jostling to squeeze into three slots. It’s an epic scenario and having felt the squeeze from nowhere, Nottingham Forest produced a huge hold of serve last night, winning 2-1 at Spurs.

A month and a half ago, when they beat Manchester City, you’d have been tempted to think Forest were home and hosed. As it is, all bets are off. But provided Chris Wood doesn’t run dry — his header against Spurs (above) takes him to 19 league goals — they have it in them to see off a frantic pursuit.

Luka who’s here! Why Modric has become co-owner at Swansea

LeBron James at Liverpool, Tom Brady at Birmingham City, the Hollywood duo at Wrexham (with promotion in the offing and Rob McElhenney in the crowd); we’re a long way past the point of raising eyebrows at celebrity investors.

That said, Luka Modric stepping out as a co-owner of Swansea City last week merited a double-take. Here was Real Madrid’s finest, the most crafty midfielder of his generation, jumping aboard a middling Championship team in deepest, darkest Wales.

Stu James has explained why this is happening and it’s fair to say Modric and Swansea is no vanity project on the Croatian’s part. City are U.S.-controlled and the 39-year-old knows their owners well. They were a Premier League side for many years and one Modric played against for Spurs. He’ll guide Swansea on recruitment and other footballing matters.

What he won’t be doing is appearing in their midfield (if Modric gets his way, he’ll secure another year on his deal at the Bernabeu), but he’s clearly serious about life in the game after retirement, and everywhere he goes, he’s got the Midas touch. This could be interesting.

Around The Athletic FC

• Kevin Demoff is one of the main cogs in Stan Kroenke’s Kroenke Sports and Entertainment (KSE) operation, a group that has sports holdings from the LA Rams in the NFL to Arsenal in the Premier League. Paul Tenorio’s interview with Demoff touches on numerous subjects, including the planned expansion of Arsenal’s Emirates stadium.
• No side in England encourages closer scrutiny of their finances than Chelsea. The Athletic’s Chris Weatherspoon took on the mission of making sense of their accounts. His findings don’t make it sound like their splurge on transfers will end anytime soon. Quite the opposite, in fact.
• A topical column from Matt Slater: why are so many World Cups now being awarded to hosts uncontested, without the feisty bidding processes of the past?
• Most clicked in yesterday’s TAFC: on that same theme, the 2026 World Cup poster extravaganza.

Catch a match

(Selected games, kick-offs ET/UK time)

Premier League: Manchester City vs Aston Villa, 3pm/8pm — USA Network, Fubo/Sky Sports.

La Liga: Barcelona vs Mallorca, 3.30pm/8.30pm — ESPN+, Fubo/Premier Sports.

Ligue 1: Nantes vs Paris Saint-Germain, 2.45pm/7.45pm — beIN Sports, Fubo/Ligue 1 Pass.

And finally…

These 94th-minute acrobatics from Bologna’s Riccardo Orsolini inflicted Inter’s fourth Serie A defeat on Sunday and created a novel prospect, with Inter and Napoli tied on 71 points at the top of the table.

A few years ago, Serie A introduced a new system for deciding the title if clubs finished the season level in first place. Irrespective of goal difference, head-to-head records or anything else, the ‘scudetto’ would be settled by a play-off between the teams.

We’re a little way off that yet — there are five games to go and Napoli, without Champions League or Coppa Italia duties, have a far easier run-in — but it might just happen. For the sake of the spectacle, I’m hoping it does.

 (Top photo: Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)

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