THREE Scottish sides have been named in the UK's top ten most investable clubs.
Last season's feel good men Arbroath top the list, with fellow Championship side Ayr United placed in second.
Livingston are the only top flight side inside the top ten, with the rest of the most investable teams made up of English Football League clubs.
The research comes from a collaboration between football finance expert Dr Rob Wilson and BetVictor.
They studied the investment potential of UK football clubs, with over 100 examined.
The study considers everything from current infrastructure and stadium utilisation to digital presence and financial health, to identify the teams that make prime candidates for expansion, and present would be buyers with the greatest investment opportunities.
Ranks are calculated based on opportunity for growth in each area. This is calculated using a weighted scoring model which combines several factors into a single score.
For digital footprint, the reseach analyses a club’s digital presence across social media and search engines. Scores consider presence in different international markets, and the desirability and profitability of being in those territories.
Infrastructure-wise, the state of a club’s infrastructure is considered by stadium condition, training facilities, youth facilities, youth recruitment, corporate facilities, and transport links.
Utilisation – a team’s stadium utilisation by assessing attendance levels, ticket sales, and ticket revenue.
And finally from a financial perspective a team’s financial health is examined by looking at revenue, net assets, net profit, wage turnover ratio, and more.
With all of that taken into account, Arbroath prevailed at the top of the list, with the ranking algorithm pointing to the club’s infrastructure condition and fan engagement as opportunities for growth from a potentially minor investment.
Ayr United is the second highest rated team based on takeover potential, it has the highest utilisation rank which means if the club were successfully scaled it offers the best ROI in this category.
And then Livi with their current recruitment approach, which relies wholly on free transfers, presenting potential investors with funds to spend in the transfer market a great investment opportunity.
The full top ten:
1) Arbroath
2) Ayr United
3) Cheltenham Town
4) Crawley Town
5) Grimsby Town
6) Stevenage
7) Carlisle United
8) Exeter City
9) Swindon Town
10) Livingston
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel