Huddersfield Town and Hull City can benefit from multi-club ownership model, insists US-based coach Brendan Burke

When Kevin Nagle bought the Terriers last month it made them adopted brothers of his other club - Sacramento Republic in the USL Championship, America's second tier. Hull chairman Acun Ilicali bought League of Ireland side Shelbourne.

Networks are all the rage in football. Red Bull's, which encompasses New York, Salzburg and Leipzig, is a finishing school for coaches, and Jesse Marsch's progression before joining Leeds United shows a pathway exists.

City Group is the biggest with England's treble winners owning New York City, Melbourne City, Yokohama F Marinos, Montivideo City Torque, Girona, Sichuan Jinuai, Mumbai City, Lommel, Esperance Sportive Troyes Aube Champagne, Palermo, and Bahia.

Even Sheffield United are in on the act, United World encompassing clubs in Belgium, France, India and Saudi Arabia.

Some might be sceptical about the benefits. Barnsley and their Pacific Group partners Nancy and Esbjerg were relegated in 2021-22 and any advantages the Blades have had from United World have been well hidden.

But Brendan Burke, who coached Colorado Springs Switchbacks to a place above Sacramento in last season's Championship Western Conference before moving to Houston Dynamo as assistant coach, can see the positives."It would be an excellent outlet for loan players," he argues. "You'll probably see (USL club) Rhode Island do something like that with Ipswich Town (both owned by Brett Johnson) and Sacramento too.

"It can increase the value of both clubs by sending their top U21 talents and it's probably a better challenge for them to play in front of 10,000 to 15,000 fans in a USL environment as opposed to an empty stadium.

"I was a reserve manager in the MLS for a long time and the difference in playing in USL and an MLS reserve league is vast for the development of an 18 to 21-year-old player, never mind a 16 to 20-year-old.

If you come to Sacramento Republic from a club like Huddersfield the expectation would be that you would excel but it won't be easy, which is great for their development.

"It's a very athletic league at its top end but there's also some very pragmatic teams, and Briggsy (Sacramento coach Mark Briggs) comes to mind.

"We played each other in the Western Conference semi-final last year and it can be tactically cagey, which is great - young players need that. The nature of USL at times, where you have to catch a guy that can flat out run past you, is good exposure."

Briggs had already asked if he can watch Neil Warnock at work, and Burke - who as Philadelphia Union's reserve team manager helped develop Christian Pulisic and Brenden Aaronson - can see plenty in the link-up for him.

"I'd potentially be looking at my next move," he said. "If not that, I would certainly want to be in contact with the technical staff and leadership.

"As coaches we go on courses where we might spend a week or a couple of weeks in someone else's environment to share ideas and see what we could potentially provide our players with that is financially reasonable to ask our owners for.

"The more ownership groups have a stake in both sides, they're going to know what works well without us having to go."

And whilst some English fans may sneer at learning football from Americans, that would be short-sighted.

"My wife has worked in Major League Baseball and the NFL in corporate sponsorship but we talk all the time about the technical side. In the US that's a major advantage."The Colorado Rapids' ownership group (who also own Arsenal), have a stake in the (Denver) Nuggets and (Colorado) Avalanche, NBA and NHL."

Speaking in Ireland last week, Ilicali insisted he had not bought Shelbourne, managed by former Chelsea winger Damien Duff, just to feed players to his Tigers.

"The project is to put Shelbourne in a better position with a better squad," he insisted.

"There will be a relationship between Shelbourne and Hull City which will be a big advantage for both clubs but this is not like there is a team in Ireland that will just feed Hull City, no.”Speaking to English journalists days earlier, his vice-chairman Tan Kesler gave a slightly different impression, saying: "We would like to have Shelbourne competing at a level where we can bring players in to help them get into the Europa League and be able to come to Hull as wildcards because of the new regulations (on overseas players)."

Either way, there does not seem to be an appetite at either Yorkshire club for a full-blown multi-club network just yet.

"Shelbourne is a project where we believe we can improve the fanbase, the stadium, the football, the culture and compete at the highest level," said Kesler. "Until we achieve that we won't look for another club.

"Moving onto another task before we've completed this one is not healthy."