The pension fund backing the Gamechanger 20 takeover of the Blues which was confirmed on Wednesday is Arizona’s Public Safety Personnel Retirement System (PSPRS).

TWTD revealed in February that it was the pension fund of the fire and police service of a US state which was set to fund the then-under negotiation takeover of the Blues.

PSPRS, whose chief investment officer is Mark Steed, was established in July 1968 to “provide a uniform, consistent and equitable statewide retirement program for Arizona’s public safety personnel”. The fund is worth $13 billion (£9.47 billion) with $700 million (£510 million) in cash.

A US investment fund called ORG manages funds on behalf of PSPRS and owns 90 per cent of Gamechanger 20 Ltd. Edward Schwartz is their representative on the board.

The Three Lions, Brett Johnson, Berke Bakay and Mark Detmer, own five per cent between them and Marcus Evans has retained five per cent.

Pension funds becoming involved in the purchase of sports teams is not as unusual as it might first appear, although often their involvement is more opaque as their funds are pooled with other investors in wider funds.

One example of an investment in North American sport is the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund's investment in ice hockey side the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Speaking at Wednesday’s press conference, new chairman Mike O’Leary outlined the relationship with the pension fund.

“It’s a classic investment fund where you have a spread of investments so that you have some that are very blue chip, that are all about dividend, you have others that are higher reward type of speculative investments and everything in between.

“And they try and balance where they invest so that if certain sectors do well, they will be OK, but if certain sectors do badly, they’re balanced by others that do better.

“It just so happens that this market really fits with one of the sectors that is, if you like, part of their profile for investment. They’ve been looking at investing in UK football for a little while, so it’s a happy marriage.

“We won’t see much of them, they won’t be involved in the day-to-day running of the club at all. They won’t even have a seat on the board, they’re happy to invest in the fund that ORG has put together so ORG is their custodian in many respects.

“And even with ORG, Ed Schwartz, who is the lead there, he’ll sit on the board of GC20 but he’s not going to be spending a lot of time here, he’ll probably visit two or three times a year. Most of the running of the club will be the CEO.”

Meanwhile, Bristol City manager Nigel Pearson has flat-batted questions regarding his club's CEO, Mark Ashton, being lined up for the same role with the Blues.

Asked whether Ashton, who worked with O'Leary at West Brom and Oxford, had mentioned anything about a move to Town, Pearson told Bristol Live: “If he has then I’m not going to talk to you about it, am I!

“In the nicest possible way. Look, it’s not really my place to ask him things like that.

“All I can say is that we have a really good working relationship, and if there is something in it then I’m not aware of it officially being the case. We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?”

Photo: Matchday Images

peewee added 19:55 - Apr 12 Evans has keeped us afloat yes but under funding us for years. Selling the best players and saying that its going on wages with average at best players, freebies and loans. Realistically we will need to spend £30-50m to get the team up to championship quality that is playoff zone team. We need 2 strikers, left and right midfield and at lest one midfield player if downs wants to stay/show up. At lest one centre back and maybe a left back and a keeper. That is only to. £3.5m each player doesn't get you alot of player now . We need 6-8 players it soon adds up

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