BARRY: WE'RE NOT AN ISLAND

Hearn: Fans must move with the times and accept foreign owners

- AARON FLANAGAN

BARRY HEARN says football fans need to learn to accept foreign ownership and declared: "We've got to move with the times."

Matchroom supremo Hearn, who was the owner of Leyton Orient for the best part of two decades, says the English game needs the investment because it has outgrown the base that it used to operate out of.

Hearn (at Brisbane Road in 2002, right) sold Orient to Italian businessman Francesco Becchetti in 2014 - a move he admits that he regrets.

Seventeen of the 20 Premier League clubs have at least one foreign entity in their controlling ownership groups, while many more are evident in the EFL, including high-profile American investment in Wrexham, Burnley and Birmingham (chairman Tom Wagner and co-owner Tom Brady at St Andrew's, above inset).

And while some fans turn their nose up to the idea of foreign ownership, Hearn tells today's episode of the podcast 'The Barry Hearn Show' that it is the only way that English football can flourish.