Billionaire Mohamed Mansour, the senior treasurer of the Conservative Party, is set to be unveiled as the owner of $500million (£399m) MLS expansion franchise this week.
The 75-year-old will be awarded a team in San Diego, California, which will become the league's 30th franchise on Thursday, according to The Times.
The Egyptian-born businessman, who is based in the UK and holds British citizenship, was named the senior treasurer of the Tory party by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in December. Mansour's firm, Unatrac, has donated more than £600,000 to the Conservatives.
Mansour's investment in the team could top $700m (£559m), according to the report, with aspirations of creating an academy beyond filling the roster with players and employing staff, with the team due to start playing in the league in 2025 ahead of the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
The price Mansour will pay is significantly more than the £305m Premier League club Newcastle United cost the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund in 2021 and it will be the most expensive MLS expansion franchise.
Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper paid $325m (£259m) to set up Charlotte FC in North Carolina, while David Beckham's deal – negotiated in his playing days when he left Real Madrid for LA Galaxy in 2007 – to set up Inter Miami for $25m (£20m) looks increasingly shrewd.
Mansour's net worth is £2.9billion, according to Forbes, with London-based firm Man Capital among his portfolio as well as Danish Superliga club Nordsjaelland, and he told The Daily Telegraph in December buying a club in England is "definitely" on his radar. Mansour also owns a collection of football academies in Ghana, Egypt and Denmark called Right to Dream.
Mansour's yet-to-be-named team will enter into a lease with San Deigo State University to play at the 35,000-seat Snapdragon Stadium, where Manchester United will play Wrexham in a pre-season friendly in July.
Mansour will jointly own the team with the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation – a Native American tribe which is believed to have occupied the San Diego area for more than 10,000 years.
Austin FC, Charlotte and St Louis City have all joined the MLS in the past three years and Las Vegas has been mooted as a possible location for another new club to to join the league if it continues to expand.
Sacramento was due to become home to an MLS expansion franchise in 2020 but investment behind the project was withdrawn due to the Covid-19 pandemic and there are no plans to resurrect the bid. There are 29 teams in the MLS this season, with San Diego set to become the 15th team in the Western Conference.
