MK Dons head coach Paul Warne has said his love of American sport means he can embrace the club’s “franchise” tag.
The former Rotherham United and Derby County boss took over at Stadium MK in April and steered the club to safety in League Two.
“I love NFL, Pittsburgh Steelers are my team and I watch every NFL game that comes over here.
“So, if anyone says to me: ‘You’re the manager of franchise team’, I’ll be like ‘Oh, am I? Great!’, I’m all over that,” he told BBC 3CR.
When Warne was given the head coach job in April, the club described it as a “significant appointment”, with the 52-year-old signing a four-year-deal.
Warne has won four promotions from League One, three with Rotherham and one when in charge at Derby County during the 2023-24 season, but he was relieved of his duties at Pride Park in February 2025.
He said the way the club is being run by Kuwaiti businessman and entrepreneur Fahad Al Ghanim has impressed him.
“The actual organisation behind the scenes is really good,” he added.
“Neil [Hart] the chief executive really impressed me and everyone works really closely.”
“The recruiters and my staff are all within a tennis ball of each other, so it’s really cohesive.
“When I interviewed for the job, I wasn’t too sure that I was suited to the ‘MK-way’ because it’s been very much ‘keep the ball, keep the ball’ but they said they haven’t really got a way at the moment as we need to get back to winning.”
Despite a tough 2024-25 campaign Warne said the target for the coming season is promotion to League One.
“Everyone feels great, everyone’s got a new kit, everyone’s got perfect grass on their pitch. All 24 clubs think they are going to have an amazing season,” he said.
“We will prepare ourselves as well as we can. If we didn’t get up, would I be disappointed? Course I would. However, over the course of the season many things can happen.
“If the lads perform to their max and we don’t go up automatically, then all I know is there’s three amazing teams out there.”
The Dons begin their 2025-26 campaign with a home game against newly promoted Oldham Athletic on Saturday, 2 August (kick off 15:00 BST).
Paul Warne was speaking to Luke Ashmead on BBC 3CR. You can listen to the full programme on BBC Sounds here.
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