Former Chelsea and England star Ryan Bertrand is the central figure behind a new investment group pitching to buy into AFC Wimbledon – with plans to pump £87million in to take the fan-owned club to the next level.
League One Wimbledon announced last week that they had identified a preferred investor in their effort to raise new capital, after admitting their ownership structure is ‘not sustainable’.
The south-west London phoenix club, founded in 2002, rose from the ninth tier of English football to the third but narrowly escaped relegation in their tenth season in the summer, a year after announcing an operating loss of £600,000 and that projected finances ‘will become very tight’.
Now, Daily Mail Sport can confirm Bertrand, 37, is the central football figure of the ‘preferred investor’ group – Sloane Street Capital (SSC), which is backed by British tech entrepreneur Omar Mir.
SSC plan to oversee football operations at Wimbledon with Bertrand in place as senior football adviser. They are offering £16m for 34 per cent of the shares in AFCW PLC and promise £71m of investment over five seasons while allowing fan ownership and control to continue by never gaining majority voting control.
‘Wimbledon is a club with real football heritage,’ Bertrand told Daily Mail Sport. ‘There’s the story of what happened before but what’s happened since is truly unrivalled. This is not “The Ryan Bertrand Show”. It’s about more ideas and empowering the club by partnering with the fans.’
Ryan Bertrand is central to the preferred AFC Wimbledon investment offer (Source: Ryan Bertrand/Instagram)
Bertrand retired from football in 2024 and has been working in player representation and talent identification after selling the Fintech investment firm he co-founded. Sources close to the former left-back claim players he has identified for various clubs now have a market valuation of £332m.
A Champions League winner with Chelsea, he has long dreamed of entering football club ownership and held talks over a move to buy Charlton Athletic previously. This summer he completed an in-depth course at Harvard University on the Business of Entertainment, Media and Sports.
SSC’s proposal is that £8m of the first £16m invested is in football operations and infrastructure. Bertrand believes his expertise can both unearth talented youngsters and help identify senior performance players with proven experience.
Mir, the backer behind the group’s funding, is the Global Strategic Advisor to the Co-Founder/CEO of World Wide Technology, the largest privately-owned technology company in the US with $20billion (£15bn) in annual revenue, and an adviser to the King’s Trust on AI and Advanced Technology. He is the group’s sole funder.
Stuart Fiertz, co-founder of the investment manager Cheyne Capital, and football agent Oliver Ward complete the SSC group.
Mir owns 95 per cent of SSC and is its only funder. The other five per cent would be split equally on completion between Bertrand, Fiertz and Ward.
Bertrand, 37, retired from football in 2024 after playing for Chelsea, Southampton and Leicester
Wimbledon say they spoke to more than 20 interested parties and Bertrand’s group emerged as the ‘strongest fit’.
The offer will now move to a vote by the 6,266 members of The Dons Trust, which closes on November 17 with an announcement on the result a day later. For the vote to pass, at least 50 per cent of eligible members must vote, 75 per cent of votes cast must be in favour and 40 per cent of all eligible members must vote ‘yes’.
