Why Zohran Mamdani owns shares in a Spanish football club

Newly-elected New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani is a shareholder of Spanish La Liga side Real Oviedo.

The 34-year-old, who became the city's youngest mayor since 1892, revealed in 2012 that he had purchased a share in the team that produced the likes of Michu and Santi Cazorla.

Mamdani's 2012 post on X, formely Twitter, re-emerged, with him saying: "Just bought a share, possibly Oviedo's first shareholder based in Maine?"

After it went viral, the club responded, saying: "Congratulations on your victory! New York now has much more of an Oviedo-blue colour to it."

Football fans across the world stepped in to save the Asturian club when they were going through financial difficulties.

Third-tier Oviedo needed £1.6m to survive a winding up order when they decided to sell shares priced at £9.50 each for supporters to purchase.

Mamdani was one of 20,000 people who took up the offer, including Michu, Real Madrid, Juan Mata and YouTuber and Hashtag United owner Spencer Owen.

The club also received investment from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.

Oviedo survived and last season achieved promotion back to La Liga, where they are playing for the first time since 2000-01.

Mamdani is New York City's first Muslim and South Asian mayor and describes himself as a democratic socialist.

He grew up supporting Arsenal in Uganda, and told a Sky News reporter after his election that he stayed up to watch deadline day every year on their channel.

The new mayor has also spoken out about Fifa's use of dynamic pricing for 2026 World Cup tickets.

New Jersey's MetLife stadium, the home of New York Jets, is set to host the final of the tournament taking place across the United States, Mexico and Canada.

This article is the latest from BBC Sport's Ask Me Anything team.

Ask Me Anything is a service dedicated to answering your questions.

We want to reward your time by telling you things you do not know and reminding you of things you do.

The team will find out everything you need to know and be able to call upon a network of contacts including our experts and pundits.

We will be answering your questions from the heart of the BBC Sport newsroom, and going behind the scenes at some of the world's biggest sporting events.

Our coverage will span the BBC Sport website, app, social media and YouTube accounts, plus BBC TV and radio.