Shrewsbury 'hit all the boxes' for new owners - Friedel

Shrewsbury Town's new sporting director Brad Friedel says the club is the perfect project for the US-backed owners after a Europe-wide search ended with them taking contol of the League Two outfit.Scott Davidson's Biscayne ST LLC consortium, which Friedel is part of, completed their takeover on Monday, buying 87.4% of the shares and allowing long-time owner Roland Wycherley to relinquish control."Scott and I met through friends in Miami and through the love of football and nothing more or less," former Blackburn and USA goalkeeper Friedel told BBC Radio Shropshire in an exclusive interview."As we got to know each other, our thoughts on business and football aligned - we got to the point where we said let's try to find a club which fits a whole bunch of criteria."So we looked in Turkey, Poland, Portugal and Holland but the clubs we were looking at, something didn't align for one reason or another and a lot of it came down to did we think our group can help the football club because we want to bring the town firmly behind the club."Wycherley first announced his plans to find a successor five years ago and Friedel says with Davidson already being a majority shareholder of Edinburgh-based The Spartans in Scottish League Two, they wanted a club they could take forward both on and off the field."The one-town club really appealed to us because we want to intergrate the club even more into the town than it is now and when you look at the investment going into the EFL, the foreign investment going into it, there's a reason for it because there's no better place for football than the United Kingdom."Once we decided our group would be best suited to the UK market, Shrewsbury hit all the boxes of what we like, but also what we feel we can deliver towards the club and the town."As a player, Friedel spent the majority of his career in the Premier League with Liverpool, Blackburn, Aston Villa and Tottenham, but the 55-year-old is unfazed about taking his first sporting director role in England's fourth tier."I don't look at football anymore as I would only take a job in the Premier League or the Champions League," he said. "One of my most enjoyable jobs post-playing career was being head coach of the US men's under-19 national team and most of those players weren't even professional."I look at football opportunities with different projects. The upside if you get it right in English football is there is such a buzz for me out of it, so I don't look at this as an EFL League Two club, I look at is as another incredible project with incredible people."Shrewsbury finished 10 points clear of relegation in League Two last season, appointing current boss and former player, Gavin Cowan in January to help steer them clear of a drop into the National League and Friedel intends to work closely with the head coach."I'm moving over here, I'll be there day-to-day so this is not a situation where you'll see me every now and then at the club, I'm not here for the short term," he added."It'll be a collaboration - the way we see football being successful is you have to have roles and structure but you can't have dictators, so Gavin and I will be around each other every day, I'll be at training every day. "It's a group effort. If we're successful it will have nothing to do with just what I do or Scott does or Gavin does, it's everybody on the field and off the field who has to pull their weight for us to be successful."One area the new owners intend to concentrate on is recruitment with Friedel revealing a department is already at work identifying potential new signings."I'm very much data driven but I'd never sign a player just on data as there are so many different elements to signing a player," he said."What data does is speed up the process and we have our own customised platform and we'll be bringing in other individuals to help with the recruitment process and we'll collaborate with Gavin and extend a much wider net around the globe looking for players."We will reach out to many parts of the world that have not been previously by Shrewsbury Town - we're excited about bringing this recruitment department in and it's something that's already in place and they're here and we're already working."The current campaign is Shrewsbury's second in League Two after a 10-season stay in League One ended in 2025 while they last played in the second tier in 1989 but Friedel is not ruling out the club returning to that level at some point in the future."Everything is possible, you've got to dream but let's take one thing at a time - we want to come in and take this step-by-step," he added."We want to be possible promotion contenders whether it's this season or next season, that's what our aim is and if we're fortunate enough to get up into League One we'll try to do it again and if we get up into the Championship that's another formidable task."We want to baby-step this a little bit, first stability, structure and make sure we're providing the resources needed for the first-team staff, for the players to be successful and for the academy to be successful and then see where we go."