Edinburgh City's new owners unveiled as debt is cleared an unique ownership is explained - exclusive interview

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The Scottish League Two club are set for huge developments following arrival of new majority shareholders

Edinburgh City have announced the arrival of their new majority shareholders with Danny and Charlotte Bohannan joining the Scottish League Two club.

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The pair first told fans of their arrival in the Scottish capital ahead of the club’s home match against Stranraer today, Saturday 5 October.

They are excited to bring their new and unique ownership style to the club, with their award-winning online school also branching out to Edinburgh in a bid to develop City’s youth academy, using the financial profits from the youth system to fund upwards.

Edinburgh City have suffered a financially devastating few years with both the women’s and development teams having to be scrapped. In December 2023, the club were also forced to field a team of under-20s for a League One clash against Stirling after it emerged that the side were unable to pay the majority of their first team players, allowing them to walk away from the club for nothing.

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The club were then handed a six-point deduction in January 2024 by the Scottish Professional Football League, after breaching rules relating to the failure to pay its players’ wages on time, and in full.

However, nine months on and theBohannans have barely been in Edinburgh a week and have already cleared the club’s debts, and are now preparing for the next step: a youth academy.

Speaking exclusively to Edinburgh Evening News, Mr Bohannan said of the couple’s new venture: “We’ve cleared all the debt, we’ve opened up a club shop and we’re moving to set up the youth academy.

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“The way we approached them was, instead of having a club that was funded by the top team and that is then spread down, we want to try and reverse that - have that American-style college that can produce the money that can then fund upwards instead.

“The idea is that the Edinburgh academy will be for attendees to be full-time students and full-time athletes so we will be using the British online School for Education.

Danny and Charlotte Bohannan, who are originally from Gosport, England, conceived the idea for the British Online School back in August 2021. Both highly qualified teachers themselves, the couple wanted to create a new framework that would allow students greater flexibility while breaking down barriers that often interfere with the ‘traditional educational’ approaches.

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Now, the co-founders are ready to take their Online School one step further as they prepare to implement it into the Scottish League Two side.

“We are building this all from scratch which is the same as what we did with our online school and that’s just grown and grown”, Mr Bohannan continued.

“The idea is that the Edinburgh academy will be for students to be full time students and full time athletes so we will be using the British Online school for the education, which for the past two years has won the award for South Coast Education Provider of the Year.”

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Of course, it won't just be the youth set-up that gets all the attention, with Mr Bohannan confirming there are great plans afoot to input more money into the senior squad in order to help Michael McIndoe’s side progress back up through the SPFL ranks.

“Between the previous owners and us, they have managed to get a really good manager. (McIndoe) has been fantastic. With the constraints that the club was under, he built a really good squad which was finishing off in League One. We were already relegated by the time we took over.

“He’s managed to put together a really good League Two squad which is performing really well. It’s not at the top of the table which is where we’d want to be but it’s performing really well for a club with (what I think are) the least resources at the moment.

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“We do obviously have plans to input more money once the youth club is up and running. McIndoe is doing a fantastic job as manager there, working within tight restraint that were put in before. But our hope is that next year, or even in January, we can give him a bit more resources to work with.”

City’s new majority shareholder has also added that while the club’s current predicament in League Two allows the Bohannans the perfect opportunity to showcase their new ownership style, he is under no doubt that funding from the youth system up could work all the way up the football leagues in Britain, including the Scottish Premiership and English Premier League.

“100% it can work,” the British Online School co-founder affirmed. “I believe what we’re creating can easily work everywhere. It’s not just about being easy - that it’s easy to apply - but it would just be so good for the children who want to be footballers but don’t make it.

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“They will actually have a good education to fall back on. Those children who struggle academically and believe football is their career and it doesn’t work for them, if they have what we will have in Edinburgh then they’d at least have qualifications to fall back on.”

Edinburgh City currently sit ninth in League Two with just one win from their opening seven matches. Saturday’s clash will see them host tenth-placed Stranraer at the Meadowbank Stadium.

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