The Academy That Owns a Football Club
With the exception of Brentford, pretty much every club in the world owns a youth academy with the end goal of pushing players through into the first team, negating the need to pay a fee for them.
FC Nordsjaelland are the exception to that rule in a very unique way. That’s because the club is owned by its academy. Yep you did read that right but it’s not quite as Lord of the Flies as it sounds.
The academy in question is the Right to Dream Academy. RTD is based in Ghana and was set up in 1999 by Tom Vernon who had formerly been Manchester United’s head scout in Africa. It was set up as (and still is) a not-for-profit organisation that aimed to train young African players from Accra whilst also giving them an education. Originally the players were housed inside Vernon’s own home, but since then the academy has grown exponentially.
In 2004 they began partnering with boarding schools in the US to offer athletic scholarships to their players and in 2010 they opened up another facility in the Eastern region of Ghana. Then in 2013 they were ranked 15th in Bleacher Report’s top youth academies allowing them to open a third facility in Ghana in 2014.
The rapid development of the academy had allowed as many as 15 players to make moves abroad by 2013 (6 of which were internationals) and in an attempt to push through even more players to foreign clubs, RTD bought Nordsjaelland in 2015.
The club was originally named Farum BK and was founded in 1991 but after a takeover in 2003 they were renamed to FC Nordsjaelland in an attempt to try and distance themselves from a scandal that had tarnished their reputation previously.
The Tigers found some success under that ownership though, claiming the biggest major honours in their history with back to back Danish Cup victories in 2010 and 2011, followed by their only Danish Superliga title in 2012. They’ve been unable to repeat any of that success since, under the ownership of RTD but that’s partly due to the club’s policy of selling their best players abroad. It’s allowed the club to be more than sustainable and provide opportunities for the academy players but has somewhat limited them with their highest league finish being 3rd out of 14 since the RTD takeover.
RTD have helped to springboard the careers of Clinton Antwi, Isaac Atanga, Mohammed Kudus, Kamaldeen Sulemana and Abdul Mumin through Nordsjaelland whilst the Danish club itself had produced Mikkel Damsgaard, Mathias Jensen, Andreas Skov Olsen and Emiliano Marcondes. They also have a hot prospect in their ranks, Andreas Schjelderup, who has drawn lots of praise from across Europe.
In fact, as part of the academy’s bold vision for the future, Vernon helped to secure a huge investment of over 100 million Euros from the Mansour Group. It’s a billion dollar Egyptian company who have invested to secure a place on the board and help with the future expansion. The aim is to use the money to build a new academy in West Cairo and then buy a London based club in England who don’t play in the top tier yet. That means the main targets would likely be Queens Park Rangers, Charlton Athletic or Millwall.
That plan could take a long time to materialise but its clear that Vernon’s vision in 1999 still has a long way to go before it’s reached it’s full potential.