sport news There's nothing wrong with celebrities like Will Ferrell buying into clubs, ... trends now

Famous people have always aligned themselves with football clubs – the only difference now is that some of these celebrities are actually helping write the cheques, rather than the age-old celebrity racket of being comped tickets.

Will Ferrell, with his newly-acquired minority stake in Leeds United, is the latest Hollywood star after Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney to invest in our game and their presence in English football naturally creates headlines and generates clicks. 

We've also seen sports stars – from LeBron James at Liverpool to Tom Brady at Birmingham – investing as the game goes ever more global.

When I was owner at Crystal Palace we had the likes of Liam Neeson, Eddie Izzard, Bill Nighy, Ronnie Corbett and Jo Brand supporting the team at Selhurst Park. None of them made an offer to invest in the club mind you. 

Although there was a suggestion at one point that Colonel Gaddafi's son was interested – as was Puff Daddy, or whatever name he goes by these days.

Ferrell's investment is further proof that sport is now undeniably part of the entertainment industry. 

There's plenty of crossover as we've seen with the All or Nothing series on Amazon and Formula One's Drive to Survive generating huge interest as well as Welcome to Wrexham. 

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All these perceived insights from behind closed doors have lent themselves to entertainment so it's no surprise that the entertainment business has got involved. 

I remember someone from Graham Norton's production company once suggesting I buy another football club so they could make a documentary about it. 

What, because I didn't lose enough money with the first one? To coin a phrase from Joe Pesci's Goodfellas character Tommy DeVito: 'I'm here to amuse you?'

But this is football now. It's not now simply the precinct of the rattle-swinging, scarf-waving, comes-from-the-town supporter or owner, it's now global with huge media interest attached. 

The media makes money from sport and sport makes money from the media so now the entertainment world looks at sport as a business opportunity. 

The Premier League – and English football – is not only hugely successful but it also has the history and heritage so it's no surprise that well-known and well-recognised people want to be involved in it.

I don't really see it as anything sinister or concerning. As long as the identity of the football club is preserved, then having celebrity fans like Ferrell who wish to invest is surely a positive. 

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In this day and age of digital content, famous football fans or investors help with engagement and recognisability so if Ferrell is running around America as a Leeds shareholder, the club will, as proven by Wrexham, be more visible. That can't be a bad thing.

Culturally, it also tells you just how popular football, as entertainment, has become. 

Football is the modern day rock and roll. It's front page, back page, everywhere. Football has become a very different business. The empty stadiums of the 1980s, dilapidated buildings and significant hooliganism are all long gone. 

It's glamorous and exciting so no wonder glamorous people want their piece of the action.

My only sadness is that everything in Great Britain seems to be for sale. It appears that the only people who don't really fancy investing in these valuable community assets like football clubs are British people. 

Like every development in this country, someone else has to come along and fund it.

We create so many things but because of the risk or scale of finances in this country, we always seem to be selling things off to foreign investment. 

We tried to offload the stock exchange to the Germans a couple of years ago for crying out loud. Can you imagine that happening with the New York stock exchange?

Culturally we often seem to be a risk-averse nation. We are

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