Aberdeen FC have announced a new strategic partnership with Atlanta United.
The partnership is set to expand Atlanta United’s reach globally and will allow both clubs to be able to share knowledge and experience involving player and youth development, venue practices, and fan experience.
It also extends both clubs' scouting network and allows for a development pipeline between them.
The parent company of Atlanta United, AMB Sports & Entertainment (AMBSE) will have minority ownership of Aberdeen with a less than 10% stake of the club.
President of Atlanta United, Darren Eales, will also join Aberdeen FC’s Board of Directors.
This comes after former Chairman Stewart Milne and other directors stepped down and Dave Cormack took over.
The US-based software entrepreneur is leading the new package of investment in the Scottish club, which AMBSE invested £2million out of the totalled £5 million.
In a club statement, Eales said: “We’re thrilled about this opportunity to partner with Aberdeen, a successful club with a long and proud history.
“The partnership is a natural fit, with synergies both on and off the pitch.
“We share the same commitment to our fans, to our core values, community engagement and competitive results.
READ MORE: SPFL extends international media partnership with Infront
“We’re excited about what we can achieve together through a shared approach to soccer and commercial operations centered around mutual respect for AFC’s heritage and Atlanta United’s innovation and progressive strategy.
“While our focus will remain on Atlanta United day-to-day, we look forward to sharing our learnings with Aberdeen as they begin the process of planning and building a new venue and developing an exceptional fan experience as we have here at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.”
Cormack, who looks set to foster the collaboration between the two organisations, said: “Atlanta United has record-breaking MLS attendances and season ticket sales, as well as the most successful fan engagement programme in Major League Soccer.
“We will be looking to learn from their experience, taking what works in Scotland, and applying it to improve our relationship with fans, create better match day experiences and develop potential sponsorships and other commercial initiatives that will generate revenues.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here