Make Tranmere Rovers Great Again
Is Joe Tacopina, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, moving in on a deal to purchase the club?
Dear readers — it’s not often we get to bring you big football news. If you want to know who Liverpool are bringing in this summer, these probably aren’t the pages you’d turn to. But today we’re making an exception, because how could we not… according to our sources Joe Tacopina, the lawyer who worked for Donald Trump in his New York porn star hush money case (before walking away from the Donald in January) is working on a deal to take over Tranmere Rovers.
Wirral residents will be more than aware of the importance of Tranmere to its community. And community has always been the watchword. The club’s last two owners have been Peter Johnson and Mark Palios; a local boy done good and a legendary former midfielder. Both Merseyside-born. A flash American lawyer would represent quite the a departure.
For now, the club is keeping hush. But for whispers on fan forums and in the pubs of Birkenhead, little has made it out. But today’s Post brings you the inside scoop from Prenton Park. If you want to read the full story (and to support us as we bid to revive long-form journalism across Merseyside) you can sign up with the button below. £7 gets you eight extra editions every month plus invites to our events.
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West Derby MP Ian Byrne has been suspended after voting in favour of scrapping the existing two-child benefit limit — a policy that prevents the vast majority of families claiming benefits for more than two children. He was one of just seven Labour MPs to do so, including Salford MP Rebecca Long-Bailey and former shadow chancellor John McDonnell. On social media, Byrne explained his decision to vote for the motion, posting data that indicated 43% of children in his Liverpool West Derby constituency live in poverty. “Experts say that the best way to immediately impact this is to scrap the two-child cap,” he said. “This is why this evening I voted for the #KingsSpeech amendment to scrap the cap.”
A further three people have been arrested in relation to the murder of Rikki Berry last week. The 36-year-old was shot dead in what police believe to have been a “targeted attack” in Kirkby. Six people were originally arrested in relation to the killing. Now, a further two men and one woman have been arrested in Shropshire by West Mercia Police on behalf of Merseyside Police, making a total of nine people detained in connection with the investigation.
And great news for Liverpool author and academic Malik Al Nasir, who was awarded an honorary degree from Liverpool Hope University this week. Due to a traumatic upbringing, Nasir spent much of his childhood semi-literate, but this did not stop him from becoming a nationally recognised poet as an adult. Over his career, he has produced several celebrated works, including his contribution to the study of Liverpool’s links with slavery and his memoir, Letters to Gil, named in reference to his friendship with the musician Gil Scott-Heron.
Make Tranmere Rovers Great Again
By Jack Walton
It’s been a busy 2024 for Joe Tacopina. In January, he walked away from Donald Trump’s legal team, on which he had been serving in the former president’s case regarding hush money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels. By April, he was… well, a long way from the courthouses of New York City. Tacopina was stood in Tranmere Rovers’ Prenton Park watching the Wirral side triumph 3-2 over Wimbledon in English Football’s lowest professional tier, League Two. The few eagle-eyed Rovers fans who spotted him had plenty of questions, namely, what the hell is Joe Tacopina doing at Prenton Park?
Good question. Aside from Trump, Tacopina has worked for American news personality Kimberly Guilfoyle, Jay-Z, and John Gotti, the former boss of New York’s Gambino crime family. A New York Post article from 2011 described Tacopina as “the devil’s advocate” and quoted a prosecutor who had some choice words about him: “He’s slick, he’s got a big ego, and he’ll represent any scumbag.” An Irish Times journalist recalled a colleague describing Tacopina in even more entertaining terms: “a Tyrannosaurus Rex in shark’s clothing with the mind of Perry Mason”.
But when he’s not breaking bread with the rich and famous, Tacopina has another interest — he loves acquiring football teams.
Tacopina has mostly done this in Italy. He was part of a 2011 consortium that purchased AS Roma; he became involved with Bologna FC in 2014; he bought Venezia FC in 2015; he became president and owner of SPAL in 2021.
According to sources close to the Tranmere top brass, it’s a “done deal”, with Tacopina part of a syndicate attempting to take over the club. The Post has been told Tranmere are simply waiting on approval from the English Football League (EFL).
None of this has been officially confirmed by the club. Quite the opposite. An Instagram post went out a few weeks ago from a company called Bluebird Mutual announcing they were now minority investors in both Tranmere and SPAL (Tacopina is SPAL’s owner — so it seemed to confirm the connection) but Nicola Palios, co-owner alongside her husband Mark Palios, replied to a fan on X saying she had “no idea why it was posted”.
Tacopina’s appearance at Prenton Park has yet to draw any media coverage, which feels surprising — Donald Trump’s lawyer and Tranmere Rovers at least makes for an eyebrow-raising headline. Nor has the fact that Tacopina has just set up a new UK-registered company, with the nature of the business listed as “activities of sports clubs”. The company is called Tac 1884. Have a guess what year Tranmere Rovers was founded?
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