Barry Hearn has pointed response to criticism of foreign owners in football

Barry Hearn was the owner of EFL club Leyton Orient for the best part of two decades but now believes that foreign ownership is the way forward for football to keep on evolving

Barry Hearn says football fans need to learn to accept foreign ownership and declares: "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, tells Thursday's episode of his Barry Hearn Show podcast that English football needs the investment because it has outgrown the base that it used to operate out of.

He sold Orient to Italian businessman Francesco Becchetti in 2014 - a move he admits that he regrets - as English football’s wave of foreign investment started filtering down into the lower leagues.

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 the high-profile American investment in Wrexham, Birmingham City and Burnley.

And while some fans turn their nose up to the idea of foreign ownership, Hearn says that it is the only way that English football can flourish.

"We've got to move with the times," Hearn says. "They're not getting these sports for free. They're paying more money than anyone else would pay and that's the reason why they're getting their foothold into the Premier League and beyond in other sports as well.

"What we're seeing here is people appreciating it outside the UK more than people operating within the UK and bringing a valuation that is way above what a domestic investor would make.

"We can't blame them for getting involved and let's be honest, on most occasions, they're usually greeted with huge enthusiasm on day one by the fans of those particular clubs because they think: ‘Happy days - open the chequebook. We're gonna win the Champions League tomorrow.’

"The players love it because they've got a bigger budget for their wages and salaries. And goodness me, that is an unbelievable amount of money.

"But the world changes. And whether it's Saudi investors, whether it's American investors, whether it's investors from China, there's a lot of them and they are paying top dollar because of the image of Premiership football - or even the thought of Premiership football.

"So you're seeing more and more people going into the Championship at the moment, dreaming that if they put in enough money, they can get in a lot cheaper. Where you’d say, if I'm gonna buy a Premiership club, I've got to be thinking of a £500million valuation for a Premiership club, and if I go into a Championship club, I'm probably talking about a quarter of that. These are rough figures.

"But we can't blame the fact that the game has outgrown the base that it used to operate under, and there are new rules out there."

Hearn has struck up lucrative deals with foreign investors for Matchroom, which have included taking boxing and snooker events to Saudi Arabia, but he says he understands why fans have concerns.

"I do understand people worrying about foreign owners coming in," he says. "It does represent a changing world and a set of changing rules and their attitude towards fans, the country they represent, the quality they're bringing in.

"They're not there most of the time but when you buy shares in any company you're not there all the time, are you?

"They may like being there and having their picture taken occasionally, but they're still running it as an investment. Don't kid yourself. The top half a dozen clubs make a lot of money."