English soccer club will compete in Championship league next season

GULLANE, Scotland -- Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas are set to become minority owners of English soccer club Leeds United, Spieth told Sky Sports on Wednesday.

Spieth and Thomas are investing in the San Francisco 49ers' ownership group, 49ers Enterprises, which is in the process of taking over Leeds after its relegation from the Premier League to the second-tier Championship for next season.

A message left with the 49ers on Wednesday wasn't immediately returned.

“Relegation wasn’t ideal,” Spieth said, “but we got involved with the 49ers group about purchasing a larger share and getting in with them doing things so successfully as they do everywhere they’ve touched.

“We thought it would be a cool opportunity. It’s a big city, historic club, great venue in Elland Road, and once we looked into it we realized it could be really exciting.”

Spieth and Thomas are longtime friends. Spieth is a three-time major champion and Thomas has two major titles. Both are in Britain for this week's Genesis Scottish Open and next week's Open Championship at Royal Liverpool.

“It was totally random,” Thomas said. “Someone, I guess, that Jordan knew came to him with the opportunity, and the ball kept rolling and we ended up there. Being a sports fan – if you had told me when I was 15, your first step into sports franchises was going to be a football club, I’d have been like, ‘Which division? Is it AFC South?’ (Laughs) It’s cool to be part of something like that, but at the same time you don’t do it to be cool.”

The 49ers' ownership group first invested in Leeds in 2018 and increased its share to 44% in late 2021. The NFL club last month reached an agreement to take over Leeds with NBA players Larry Nance Jr. and T.J. McConnell joining as minority partners.

Leeds didn’t specify the sale price for the remaining 56% but British media reported it to be 170 million pounds ($214 million).