JIM SPENCE: Are Dundee United or St Johnstone wanted by billionaire?

The Courier

16-05-2025

Imagine St Johnstone or Dundee United owned by a billionaire.
Football and speculation are joined at the hip so with Dane, Anders Holch Povlsen – said to be Scotland's richest man – sponsoring Saints' kit through his online fashion retailer MandM, some folk are putting two and two together and coming up with – well – four.
After all, the man, reckoned by Forbes business magazine to be worth £13 billion, already owns FC Midtyjlland in Denmark and has other football interests too.
And buying either United (who he was linked with a few months ago) or Saints, would represent a rain drop in the North Sea of his wealth.
The delicious prospect of outgunning the Old Firm and bringing their 40-year duopoly of the top league to an end may be wishful thinking, but might his small step at Saints be a precursor to an investment which could shake Scottish football to the core?
Povlsen's Midtylland make Saints and United look like paupers by comparison.
Founded in 1999, they've won four league titles since 2015 and appeared in European group stages; they've generated commercial income of over £11 million and, astonishingly, under Povlsen's ownership, spent almost £31 million in the 2023/24 financial year on player transfers.
So might Povlsen be persuaded to make a bid for Saints or United, and what would be in it for him?
I never underestimate the ego factor in football, and owning a club brings real cachet and status in the world top business folk move through.
Many of our clubs still have a real history in Europe, even though the years between actual success and current success are fast receding.
That history still has its attractions though, as does the much greater likelihood of qualifying for European football than in some other leagues where investment is more expensive.
If Povlsen took over at United, the Dane would inherit average attendances of over 11,000; almost twice that of Saints.
Saints, though, offer a newer stadium with a far bigger footprint for any possible future development plans.
United offer a rich European pedigree as the fourth placed club in Scotland's storied European history, along with the bragging rights of beating Barcelona in all four competitive meetings.
Saints (current relegation travails aside) offer the stability of sixteen successive seasons in the top flight, along with two Scottish Cup wins and a League Cup win between 2014 and 2021.
Both clubs, though, could potentially offer a regular passport to European football with a level of investment which would be negligible, given Povlsen's wealth.
United would be the more costly investment with current owner Mark Ogren, if he was prepared to sell, looking to recoup the £13 million pounds invested, while Saints are debt-free and with a much more valuable piece of real estate in McDiarmid Park than Tannadice represents.
With the current fashion for club partnerships, both Saints and United could offer an ideal symbiosis with Midtjylland and Povlsen's other football interests, with the prospect of better quality players arriving in Perth or Dundee.
Midtylland's crowds average around the 10,000 mark; they're heavily invested in community involvement like Saints and United, but unlike the Scots, they have bold plans to become one of Europe's top 50 clubs.
Povlsen is heavily immersed in Scotland; he is the country's largest landowner and his company AAA owns the Jenners building on Princes Street in Edinburgh.
He's been labelled an ethical billionaire, so if he persuaded Saints' owner Adam Webb to sell, might he move Saints to an oft-discussed smaller stadium; an eco-friendly one, more adequate for their needs, and then re-purpose McDiarmid Park along sound ecological grounds?
Such a move would give him both football and environmental kudos.
If he could be persuaded to buy United, he'd have a tough job convincing Arabs to move from their ancestral home, but the prospect of serious investment in the team from a billionaire would, I suspect, be welcomed with open arms.
Is a move by the Dane for either club likely?
In football, I'm long past the stage where anything surprises me, so even just thinking about the ramifications of a billionaire blowing our game wide open – and the excitement it would bring – is worth the speculation alone.