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When KSI announced he had purchased a 20% stake in Dagenham & Redbridge earlier this week, he became the latest in an increasingly long line of celebrities taking a financial interest in lower-league football clubs.

Last month American rapper and Swansea City shareholder Snoop Dogg was well-received by fans at their Championship match against Preston while former NFL quarterback Tom Brady is part-owner of Birmingham City and Wrexham’s attention-grabbing rise up the divisions under actor-owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney could lead to promotion to the Premier League at the end of the season.

Now KSI, a YouTuber, streamer and musician who has gone from uploading video game streams in his childhood bedroom to running a business empire including a drinks brand, production company and boxing promotion firm, is dreaming of taking the Daggers to the top flight too.

“The idea of it just excites me so much,” the 32-year-old said when announcing the move in a video which has earned tens of millions of views online.

“I want the place to be pumping. I want it to be an event when people come here. I want do the unthinkable and get to the Premier League.

“Everyone here is hard-working and I want to be the man who affects things on the pitch as well as off the pitch.”

A celebrity has now purchased shares in English clubs at a rate of one per year since 2020, excluding 2021.

“The game is evolving and so are we,” wrote Daggers chairman Anwar Uddin on social media after the news was announced.

“Looking forward to writing the next chapter of our history together.”

For clubs like Dagenham, playing in the National League South after reaching as high as League One in the 2010-11 season, the appeal of celebrity investment is the powerful combination of enormous wealth and popularity.

“The celebrities have the ability to move things into a totally new space, particularly in terms of making things go viral online,” explains Dan Plumley, principal lecturer in sport finance at Sheffield Hallam University.

“In our age of digital content, influencers’ platforms are where kids are nowadays and they’re following individuals as much as teams and brands.

“There will be people interested in the celebrity, particularly the younger generation, who will begin taking an interest in a club they might have never even heard of before.

“For the club it’s about how they leverage that, including maybe doing some things for publicity that might not always be popular with everyone.”

Trends in football ownership often move in cycles, as has been the case with influxes of investment from sovereign states and American holding companies. And now it’s celebrities coming in a quick flurry.

For clubs looking for investment now, the potential advantage of becoming an early adopter of the celebrity model is not being left behind.

The potential for financial success on the celebrity investors’ part is far less certain and the investment is often treated more like a hobby.

“History tells us most investors in football clubs don’t tend to make money and some English clubs are carrying huge losses,” Plumley says.

“It’s more of a passion project thing for a lot of the celebrity investors, who have already made their money in their careers, with potential big returns only if their grand plans for the club come off.

“The global appeal of football still holds for investors, even in the lower leagues, and English football is uniquely placed because of the amount of clubs there are.

“The financial gap is huge between the leagues so it’s a massive job to rise up from where Dagenham are – and then to keep going beyond that towards the Premier League would cost hundreds of millions of pounds.

While the positive transformation of some clubs’ fortunes – particularly Wrexham – and the beneficial impact on the wider community has earned praise for some celebrity investors, in some instances fans have criticised rises through the divisions earned thanks to heavily increased budgets provided by celebrity benefactors as artificial and unearned.

“It’s exciting for people and sounds very positive,” says Russell Elmes, chair of Dagenham & Redbridge Supporters Club.

“There is always a bit of wondering what’s going to happen because our last few different ownerships haven’t quite worked out as we all hoped, so hopefully better and brighter things are ahead for us in the future this time around.

“We want someone here for the long term who is going to make the club sustainable because it is going to take a long time to get back to where there fans want us to be.

When Nina Sparks was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2021, she decided very quickly it was going to be the making of her.

“Diagnosed in March, classified to compete internationally in November,” she tells BBC Sport.

“It was a very quick upwards trajectory to being an athlete.”

Now, history beckons. At this month’s Winter Paralympics, Sparks will become Great Britain’s first female Paralympic snowboarder.

“It’s taken me a while to adjust to the fact that it’s quite a big thing,” she says.

That love for the mountains blossomed the moment she first saw them. Adopted as a 10-month-old, her parents first took her skiing when she was five or six. She later switched to snowboarding at 13.

It is, to her, “the closest thing you can get to flying”.

But the sport was always just a hobby, a once-a-year trip. When Covid hit in 2020, she was working as a full-time peripatetic music teacher, and as learning moved online, she realised she was no longer tied to the UK.

And so she moved her life to the mountains, teaching piano, trumpet and saxophone her “side hustle”. But it was while she was living in Austria that she first noticed signs that something wasn’t right.

“I woke up and had a numb right foot. That spread up my right leg and then my left leg, and from about mid-November [2020] I got to the point where I couldn’t feel temperature very well.

“Going through diagnosis was really tough, and certainly for me – I was in Austria by myself.

“I just thought ‘let’s make something of this’. I always knew about the Paralympics, and I knew about Kadeena Cox, a very famous British Paralympian with MS.

Heading into the Milan-Cortina Paralympics, which start on Friday, Sparks is a four-time World Cup and two-time World Championship medallist across the LL2 snowboarding events, for athletes with a lower limb impairment with less activity limitation than their LL1 counterparts.

Because of her MS, a condition that affects the brain and spinal cord, she uses an orthotic to walk and competes with an ankle foot orthosis in her boot.

“The biggest thing for me is that I now need to nap, every day, without fail,” she says.

“We come in from the mountain and I’m straight to bed.

“Some days, I may be able to do five runs, some days I may be able to do 25 runs, maybe the next day I need an extra day off because I’m super tired. Quality over quantity, is what one of my coaches says a lot.”

Sparks is joined by fellow snowboarders James Barnes-Miller, Ollie Hill, Matt Hamilton and Davy Zyw in the 25-strong ParalympicsGB squad.

On 14 March, she will compete in the women’s LL2 banked slalom, a technical discipline raced against the clock on a course of tight turns.

“In our sport, a big thing is just showing up. We often have really small numbers in our competitions, just because worldwide there aren’t many women with disabilities involved in Para-snowboarding,” Sparks says.

“Certainly I’m not going to be the only woman making history for their nation at these Games. So showing up and giving it a go is half the battle.

Jonny Clayton says it would be amazing to meet fellow Welshman Gerwyn Price in the final on night five of the Premier League Darts in Cardiff.

‘The Ferret’ sits top of the standings after four weeks and is on the opposite side of the draw to Price in the Welsh capital.

Both Welshmen have won a night in this year’s competition, with Price, 40, triumphing on night two in Antwerp and Clayton on night three in Glasgow.

“Two Welsh boys in the final, that would be amazing,” said 51-year-old Clayton.

“Obviously Jonny Clayton picking up the trophy would be a little bit better!

The Carmarthenshire native missed out on the previous two years of the Premier League, but says he is excited to return and play in Cardiff this time.

“I’ve been away from the Premier League for a couple of years now,” Clayton told BBC Sport Wales.

“I’m back in and back in Wales playing, so that’s all I want, my favourite tournament, my favourite city.

“There’s no better support than the Welsh. There’s only one major in Wales and it’s the Premier League night, to be a part of that in front of your own crowd is fantastic.”

Clayton admits having fan-backing for both himself and Price – often the target for booing in the past – will be unusual.

“It’s going to be mental, it’s going to be exciting, singing, chanting and they’re all behind us for a change,” he added.

Clayton won the Premier League title in his debut year in 2021, beating Portugal’s Jose de Sousa 11-5 in the final, something he is looking to do again.

“All I can do is to go out and try to play my best darts and if I can carry on doing that I’m doing something right.

“If it’s my campaign it’ll be my campaign. Hopefully it is and I can be double Premier League champion.”

With a highly competitive field of eight players which includes four world champions, you could be forgiven for not expecting the former plasterer to be top of the standings after four weeks.

Neither Luke Littler nor Luke Humphries have made the final in any of the four nights of action in 2026, despite being ranked number one and two in the world.

Clayton, however, has been the model of consistency in the 2026 tournament.

Winning his quarter-final match each week has ensured he has left with at least two points at each venue, the only player to have done so.

“I’ve been in the Premier League before so I know what you have to do,” he said, “It’s a bit of experience on my behalf.

“Points are so important whether it’s just the two points or it’s five points, if you can pick up two every week you’ll be close at the end of the 16th week for the 17th week [play-offs].”

He says consistency week-on-week is really important.

“Picking up nightly wins is a massive bonus,” added Clayton.

“I’ve got one under my belt, hopefully there is one Thursday night, and I can still be at the top when it comes to week 17.”

Clayton takes on World Championship runner-up Gian van Veen in the quarter-finals on Thursday, with the pair splitting their past meetings.

“We’re one win each but he’s at my home in Wales so hopefully that will be to my advantage and Gian can experience the proper Welsh crowds.

Thursday, 5 March – Utilita Arena, Cardiff

Quarter-finals

Michael van Gerwen v Luke Humphries

Gian van Veen v Jonny Clayton

Gerwyn Price v Stephen Bunting

Luke Littler v Josh Rock

Semi-finals

Van Gerwen/Humphries v Van Veen/Clayton

Price/Bunting v Littler/Rock

Final