Jaguars owner Shad Khan is happy to take his football team to London once a year.
Now he has a football team in London every day.
Khan confirmed Friday that he had purchased the English soccer club Fulham, with the deal to be announced tomorrow.
“I do not view myself so much as the owner of Fulham, but a custodian of the club on behalf of its fans,” he said in a statement, via Ryan O’Halloran of the Florida Times-Union. “Fulham is the perfect club at the perfect time for me.”
In many respects, Fulham is kind of the same team he already owns. While Fulham resides in London, it’s not one of the biggest clubs in the Premier League (12th in the 20-team league last year, with a 25,000-seat stadium). And while they have a few good players on the roster, they’re not close to challenging for a title soon (Dimitar Berbatov is the Maurice Jones-Drew of the Premier League, or something).
And while people will speculate about the Jaguars becoming full-time residents, that’s not necessarily any more likely to happen now than it would be for the Rams to move since Stan Kroenke owns Arsenal or the Buccaneers by virtue of the Glazer family owning Manchester United.
It’s simply a bargain-rate entry into a league which keeps getting richer and richer.