Earlier this year, JerseyBird founder and CEO Hayes Canupp bought 50% of a sixth-tier Kenyan football club. He is living the dream shared by football fans around the world: owning and operating a struggling club with the hope of one day reaching the Kenyan Premier League. How did a young twenty-something from Nashville, Tennessee come to own an obscure football club on another continent, thousands of miles away? That’s what we’re going to explore in this JerseyBird–Kahawa Pride case study in football ownership.

Countless football fans around the world share a common goal: to one day own and operate a football club. Roughly 20 million people play Football Manager, simulating club ownership and operations. The EA Sports FIFA series offers a career mode in which users can act as an owner, manager, or player. There have also been a handful of go-getters who have actually gone out and bought or started a club on their own. Examples of this include Hashtag United, Walton & Hersham FC, and Kahawa Pride FC among others.