Gary Otto

I grew up in the 1960’s and 1970’s in South Africa an avid English football (soccer) fan, despite the fact that South Africa only got TV in 1976, and only started getting any soccer TV coverage in the mid-1980’s. I would sit patiently by the mailbox every week waiting on the 4 or 5 different English soccer magazines that I subscribed to, and would devour each one from cover to cover, many times over each week.

My two goals and dreams as a child were to be a professional soccer player and to own my own business. At some point (around 16) I realized that the chances of me becoming one of the very few professional soccer players produced each year was slim to none, and decided to focus on business instead, and it was then that my dream of owning a soccer team rather than playing in one was born. From then on, beside supporting my favorite English team, Leeds United, my time was spent on strategies and moves I would make as an owner of Leeds United, who was a team that flourished for many years, and then through mis-management, found itself in bankruptcy and relegated to the third tier of English Football.

Fast forward many years, I moved to the U.S.A after completing my military training and studies in South Africa. The U.S.A at the time did not have much TV coverage of English soccer, but this slowly changed over the years, and I re-discovered my passion for the game. In 1995 I started a real estate investment business, which by around 2010 had put me in in a position financially of being able to invest in my passions, the biggest of which was soccer.

My dreams started up all over again, and in 2009 I started the search for an investment into a soccer team. Through a series of weird coincidences, I spent 3 days in Monaco with Ken Bates, the owner of Leeds United. We came to an agreement on terms of an investment into my boyhood team, however the deal was never consummated, as the Bahrainis moved in and paid significantly higher for the team than I was prepared to do.

Over the next 7 or 8 years, I researched, underwrote, visited, made offers on a number of teams, including another offer on Leeds United and offers on Coventry City, MK Dons and French teams Le Havre FC and Nancy. Nothing seemed to be sticking, my offers were all based on sound business principles, which clearly in this business did not seem to matter. Teams were borrowing money and spending recklessly, the prices of buying player contract was increasing precipitously, and smaller teams, trying to stay in competition with bigger teams were going in and out of bankruptcy.

After losing out on all the offers I had made, I took a break for a year and recalibrated my thinking. At the end of that year, a contact I had made during my travels called and knew that a small team in Switzerland, Lugano FC was available. That dragged me back into the fray, and I made an offer to buy that club, only to once again hit a brick wall in the form of a Russian investor in the team, who was impossible to deal with. Another deal fell through.

During my trip to Lugano, I had stopped in London and met with the chairman and vice-chairman of a small 123 year old community soccer club based in London named SUTTON UNITED, who were playing in the 5th tier of English soccer and therefore considered a “non-league” team. They had never played higher than the 5th tier, and we discussed the injection of funds into the team in exchange for an ownership interest. After a very enjoyable meeting, and a most interesting underwriting of the club, I agreed to make the investment and (finally) become an owner of a soccer team. Despite the tiny nature of the club, it is made up of approximately 40 teams including various youth teams, ladies’ teams, handicap teams and 2nd chance teams. It also includes a youth academy, serving 150 youngsters, who do their schooling and soccer training on the club premises.

I have now been an owner of the club for almost a year. During the first part of the year, we made many changes to the team structure, and signed the manager to a long-term contract, converted all the players to full-time professional status and hired a “Director of Football”. The extra investment and the changes seemed to have helped, because we won the league for the 5th tier and were promoted, for the first time in the club’s 123-year history, to the 4th tier (League 2), which is considered part of the EFL and the professional English leagues.

Entering into this new level of football has not been without challenges, as we now fall under the auspices of the EFL, who have their own set of requirements. As a result, between the end of the last season and the current new season, we were required to change the surface of the football ground, replace and upgrade the floodlights, implement a new ticketing system, add stands to accommodate separately traveling “away fans” and more. It was an incredibly stressful and frenetic time for all concerned, but through superhuman efforts by the local people on the ground, we finished all the work with one day to spare. During that time period, we also needed to strengthen the squad with smart recruitment. We were able to maintain our winning squad from last season, and added 6 new very talented young players.

We started the season with the oddsmakers making us favorites to end the season in last place and be relegated back to the 5th tier. But we are the little engine that could, and despite starting the season in last place with a few unfortunate losses as well as a Covid outbreak and some injuries, we finally settled down, and after 10 games, we have won 5 of our last 6 and sit in 7th place in the league (out of 24 teams). The season is long, we play 46 league games as well as various cup tournament games, so anything can happen, including I am sure injuries and some losing streaks.

But none of that really matters to me. I have been so fortunate to be living a childhood dream and a lifelong bucket list item. It took me all of about 13 years of searching and trying to finally find something that was the right fit, that made sense to me, and that now feels like a part of me. If I can say anything about this journey I have been on, it is to never give up, never lose hope, always believe you are on the right track, and focus on the prize, but never lose your enjoyment of the journey.

 - Gary Otto