Landon Donovan being interviewed by Prost Amerika in his San Diego office in 2017
Photo: Ali Gilmore/Prost Amerika
League One side Lincoln City are to add an illustrious name to their efforts to gain promotion to the Championship next year.
Former US international Landon Donovan is to join the Imps as a Strategic Advisor as part of a major restructuring involving minority owners of the baseball franchise San Diego Padres.
As a player, Donovan won six MLS Cups, two with San Jose Earthquakes before winning a further four with a Los Angeles Galaxy side that included the likes of David Beckham and Robbie Keane.
He made 157 appearances for his country scoring 57 goals, a record he now shares with Clint Dempsey. The creative midfielder had two brief loan spells with Everton in 2010 and 2012.
Donovan is currently the Vice-President of Soccer Operations/ Manager for USL Championship side San Diego Loyal, a club situated in one of the USA’s most fervent soccer markets still to have a MLS side.
Donovan moved from LA to front the attempt to bring MLS to San Diego and although that fell through, he liked the city enough to stay and become part of the new USL startup.
Donovan once told Prost Amerika in an interview that his boyhood ambition was not to be a player but an owner.
“I liked being able to impact all the different part of a team, an organisation and a club,” he told Prost Amerika in his San Diego office.”
PROST AMERIKA INTERVIEWS LANDON DONOVAN 2017
He has been ‘living that dream’ for a couple of years now in his adopted home city but that is within a system with minimal opportunities for promotion, as MLS is a closed league that you have to buy your way into like most US sports.
Lincoln City however are a club on the way up. They narrowly failed to win promotion this year, losing a play-off at Wembley to Blackpool by 2-1.
They finished fifth in the League One table on 77 points and then beat Sunderland in the play off semi final. Despite taking a dream lead within seconds at Wembley through an own goal, they succumbed to a resurgent Blackpool side.
In only their second consecutive year in League One, it was a very promising season nonetheless. They made the semifinal of the EFL Trophy and the third round of the FA Cup where they fell to (then) English Champions Liverpool.
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They even spent most of the season in the automatic promotion slots and were actually top after 28 games after a 2-1 win at Wigan, only to suffer a poor run of five wins from their last 18 matches. Hull City and Peterborough were promoted and third place Blackpool eventfully joined them.
Still, it was a vast improvement on their 16th place in the previous curtailed year, and the Imps will start the 2021/22 season as highly fancied to push for promotion again. This is all the more remarkable given they were a non-league side from 2011-2017.
The move comes as part of a restructuring of the Lincolnshire club that will see a heavy US influence.
Lincoln fans came to Wembley but saw their team narrowly miss out on promotion
Photo: Steve Clare/Prost International
Phoenix, Arizona resident Harvey Jabara is the Managing Member of Olive Management LLC, a family office investment firm, and minority member of the consortium which owns the Major League Baseball team San Diego Padres. He will be joined by his wife Missy and two sons Jaxon and Jensen in HJ-LCFC Holdings LLC.
The Jabara family are to join the existing group of shareholders in Lincoln City Holdings which owns 75% of Lincoln City Football Club.
Donovan himself will work with the Board, current Chief Executive Liam Scully, and Director of Football Jez George to grow the club’s branding and outreach in North America among other things and maybe hope that some elements of English football come Stateside.
“I’m just looking forward to have the opportunity to go and be a fan and sit at the stadium and watch a match and get to know another part of the world and enjoy it,” said Donovan. “So that is certainly refreshing.”
After seeing Lincoln nearly win promotion to the EFL Championship via the playoffs, it bolsters Donovan’s belief that promotion/relegation could work here.
“I realize all the nuance involved. I’ve always said as a fan, promotion and relegation is incredible and also heartbreaking. As people have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the making the sport grow in this country, it’s a bit of a daunting idea. So, I believe we will get there. I don’t know how long it will take, but I think from purely a fan’s perspective. It would make the sport grow pretty rapidly.”
Donovan does not believe his role with Lincoln City will adversely affect his current roles with San Diego Loyal.
“It’s not difficult [to balance]. [The Lincoln City role] is enjoyment for me,” said Donovan. “I enjoy what I do at San Diego, but it’s a lot of work. I’m just learning a lot. I’ve taken a number of either initiatives or things that Lincoln City do and already started to implement here in San Diego and I’m just trying to use this as a learning experience. So, there’s not a lot that I ‘have to’ do and I just really value the opportunity to learn from people who are clearly doing it at a very high level.
As for Jabara, one of the reasons why they were putting investment into Lincoln City was that it is a club on the upswing as opposed to a club in distress or one that just goes along with the real estate.
“Some people come into these endeavors looking for a distressed club and try and find a turnaround project,” said Jabara. “We’ve looked at some that had those characteristics, but there is something about a success that was on the uprise that was more intriguing to us. Of course it is a financial investment and when you make a financial investment, you are always going to talk about return on investment.
“For us and our family, as much if not more of our return on investment comes from the thrill of being involved. The goal of moving up the pyramid and into the Championship. That to us is where you get the true return and the true satisfaction of the investment. Nobody wants to lose money, but we’re really not thinking of it from a financial return. This is all about achieving success on the field and hoping to continue to grow an organization. So there’s no question that the attraction here was the trajectory and trying to help continue that trajectory.
Lincoln City
San Diego Loyal
