Premier League owners' world map: the staggering global scale of foreign riches

The Premier League has become even more cosmopolitan with the arrival of promoted clubs Wolves, Cardiff and Fulham. That's because the men bankrolling the three new additions  come from America, Malaysia and China.

Of the clubs relegated last season, West Brom and Swansea were foreign-owned but Stoke were under the control of local businessman Peter Coates. That means the trend of increasing foreign ownership in the top flight continues, with British owners now accounting for only seven of the 20 Premier League clubs. Yet one of those, Crystal Palace, is only partly owned by Londoner Steve Parish, while another, Tottenham, has an English owner in Joe Lewis who is based in the Bahamas.

Modern-day football is awash with money from across the globe but, even below the top tier, buying a Championship club and leading it up into the Premier League represents a significant monetary opportunity. The majority of the second tier is now also foreign-owned, notably by Egyptian billionaire Nassef Sawiris, who took control at Aston Villa in the summer (from China's Dr Tony Xia), and Andrea Radrizzani, who has lured high-profile manager Marcelo Bielsa to Leeds United.

Our world map of where Premier League and Championship club owners are based shows the staggering scale of global ownership of England's top clubs.

Fulham owner Shahid Khan is the most high-profile of the new additions to the Premier League owners' club. A Pakistani-American billionaire, Khan found himself in headlines around the world earlier this year with his attempts to buy Wembley stadium.

Born in Lahore and now residing in Florida, Khan also owns NFL team the Jacksonville Jaguars, but is in close contact with manager Slavisa Jokanovic over Fulham's first Premier League season since 2013-14.

The same applies for Cardiff and their Malaysian owner Vincent Tan, whose personal wealth stands at £676million. Cardiff went down with Fulham in that same season but have been led back to the Premier League under the guidance of Neil Warnock.

Tan has had his fair share of tumultuous moments as owner of Cardiff. His rebranding of the club in 2013, including switching the home kit colour from blue to red, caused uproar among the club's fanbase. He eventually bowed to fan pressure in January 2015 to revert back to blue.

Wolves stormed to Championship glory last season with the backing of Chinese group Fosun International, who have an enormous overall wealth of £60billion.

The conglomerate bought the Midlands club in 2016 for £30m. A rocky first season saw Walter Zenga sacked after 87 days as the club slid towards the relegation zone before Paul Lambert steadied the ship. But the control he wanted over transfers meant his stay was only ever going to be short-lived. Current manager Nuno Espirito Santo replaced him in May 2017.

He is represented by high-profile Portuguese agent Jorge Mendes, who is friends with Guo Guangchang, the owner of Fosun, which also owns part of Mendes's Gestifute player agency. Mendes represents a host of talent, mainly Portuguese and including Cristiano Ronaldo, and he clearly has an influence over proceedings at Molineux – Wolves twice broke the Championship transfer record to sign Helder Costa for £13m from Monaco and Ruben Neves — the youngest captain in Champions League history and full Portugal international — from Porto for £15.8m. Both are clients of Mendes.

For the likes of Fosun and Khan, the allure of achieving sporting success could well outweigh their desire to stay or sell and line their pockets with more millions. That will all be revealed in time.

The Premier League has an array of owners from across the globe, whose motives also lie somewhere between sporting success and financial gain, although one without the other is almost impossible. From Manchester United's New-York-based Glazer family to Manchester City's UAE royalty, Sheikh Mansour, business people have seen opportunities to increase value in a club by helping them a few rungs up the footballing ladder, or just enjoy the crazily-spiralling revenues from global television broadcast deals.

There are three Chinese owners of Championship clubs now (Gouchuan Lai at West Brom, Paul Suen at Birmingham, and Dai Yongge and Dai Xiu Li at Reading) while there are also owners across the division from Greece to Malaysia, via far-flung nations such as Saudi Arabia and Thailand.

English football has a fast-paced, physical style of play woven into its identity that never seems to change. Yet further from the field of play and in the stands, its culture is becoming ever more diverse.