Foreign owners: Why?

With all the Russians and Americans currently in football, it might be nice to think 'what are they all doing here?'. The answer seems to lie mainly in three key factors with foreign owners:
1. Money: Although this is becoming less common now with the credit crunch, you still get the occasional owner/idiot who buys a club with the aim of selling it two years later for a quick profit. Examples of this are ‘franchise Frazer’ and Gillett and Hicks


Hicks and Gillett - Money seekers

 2. Recognition: How many people in the uk had heard of a Russian called Roman Abramovich before he took over Chelsea? Exactly. This is also used in the  case of companies taking over football clubs, so that people will start to recognise them (e.g. NESV, Venky's limited). Nowadays, ownership of a Premier League club gives you instant global recognition.

A Russian glory grabber?

3. A plaything: Some owners do it just for fun. Basically, they're bored of their normal multimillionare lives and want to have some fun. For instance, Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan isn't looking to make a quick buck and move on, nor is he that intrested in the publicity as he has only ever seen one Man-City game so far.

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The majority shareholders of each Premier League club add up to 5 Americans/American companies, one person from Hong Kong, one Indian company, 10 Englishmen, 1 Russian, one Egyptian and one Saudi Arabian. At this point this starts to look like a huge game of Risk with 7 different countries all owning clubs.
However, once you go into the Championship, the number of foreign owners rapidly decreases, with 19 out of the 24 clubs owed by Engishmen. This is mainly because the first two elements of wanting to own a football club have disappeared, leaving only the third element for foreign owners.