{"id":703996,"date":"2026-05-30T09:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T09:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/703996\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T09:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T09:16:09","slug":"football-club-bought-by-international-investors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/703996\/","title":{"rendered":"Football club bought by international investors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South Shields FC has been taken over by a group of overseas investors to help it &#8220;grow and develop&#8221;, the club&#8217;s chairman has said.<\/p>\n<p>The Mariners are now owned by a consortium led by ORY Investment Holding, which has bought a majority stake in the club for an undisclosed sum.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The club said no changes had been made to its leadership team, with Ian Watson continuing to serve as first team manager while Geoff Thompson would remain as chairman and a &#8220;significant shareholder&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Thompson said ORY had &#8220;invested significant time&#8221; in understanding the club&#8217;s history, culture and &#8220;huge potential&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m very excited and thrilled to be working with them moving forward and genuinely believe this heralds an incredibly exciting new phase in the club&#8217;s growth and development,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The club said Thompson and the new investor group would carry out a strategic review of operations focusing on improving on-field performance, supporter experience and financial sustainability.<\/p>\n<p>The off-season would also be used to prioritise strengthening the men&#8217;s first-team, they said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Hard work ahead&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>ORY Investment is a group of international investors led by Jason Ye, a lawyer and partner at US firm Ortoli Rosenstadt LLP.<\/p>\n<p>By bringing ORY onboard, the club said it hoped to attract new overseas partners to help it grow.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The club also said ORY would help develop its youth academy so it could &#8220;nurture local talent&#8221; while &#8220;recruiting promising players from around the world&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Ye said it was a privilege to join a club &#8220;at the heart of one of the world&#8217;s most prolific regions for football talent&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We know there&#8217;s plenty of hard work ahead, but we&#8217;re fully committed to building on the fantastic foundation Geoff and the team have already created,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We truly believe South Shields FC can grow into a strong force both on and off the pitch.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Mariners recently missed out on promotion to the National League after losing 2-0 to Kidderminster Harriers in the National League North play-off final.<\/p>\n<p>Follow BBC North East on <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BBCNEandCumbria\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:X;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;X&quot;}\" class=\"link \">X<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bbcnortheast\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Facebook;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Facebook&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/bbc.in\/3yyMYUI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Nextdoor;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Nextdoor&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Nextdoor<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bbcneandcumbria\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Instagram;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Instagram&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>More storiesRelated internet links<img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1780132569_362_.gif\"\/><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Shields FC has been taken over by a group of overseas investors to help it &#8220;grow and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,342639,38796,342642,342641,47500,342640,85,76656],"class_list":["post-703996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-geoff-thompson","tag-national-league","tag-ory","tag-ory-investment-holding","tag-south-shields","tag-south-shields-fc","tag-sports","tag-the-mariners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}