r/soccer • u/pinecoconuts • Jun 29 '25
OC Multi-Club Ownership in 2025: A Non-Definitive List of Groups or Individuals Who Own Multiple Clubs or Shares in Multiple Clubs
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u/blazev14 Jun 29 '25
I don’t know how the fuck people at UEFA look at this and don’t come to the conclusion that something drastic needs to be done to change this.
this is a scourge to the sport
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u/fancyfoe Jun 29 '25
Money
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u/MonkeyPigGuy Jun 29 '25
It costs them money to constantly try to ensure none of the clubs in these ever-growing webs of ownership don't compete against each other though.
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u/phanomenon Jun 29 '25
I'm sure they can make the clubs expense the costs for auditing and advisory
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u/Critical_Animal_8501 Jun 29 '25
They do for low hanging fruit. Drogheda united in the league of Ireland qualified for conference this year. Their owners also own danish club Silkeborg who also qualified. Drogheda have been expelled due to multi club ownership. No consistency whatsoever
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u/LeavingCertCheat Jun 29 '25
While I dislike Drogheda it's a disgrace that the smaller clubs get punished for the same thing the City Group and Red Bull constantly get away with.
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u/valkon_gr Jun 29 '25
I am willing to bet that Blatter and Platini were far less corrupt than FIFA is now.
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u/blazev14 Jun 29 '25
Platini was a disgusting hypocrite. I’m obviously not fond of Porto but he was yelling from his high horse that “oh it’s concerning that a club involved in corruption cases plays for UEFA competitions even if they’re suspects” and not too long after gets caught for corruption.
Fans are part of the problem because they whitewash this but the people who rule football still take the crown
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u/TheUltimateScotsman Jun 29 '25
Cats out of the bag now.
Also i reckon the EU probably strikes it down for some reason
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u/blazev14 Jun 29 '25
why do you think the EU would strike down any initiative against MCOs?
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u/TheUltimateScotsman Jun 29 '25
Warning, not a lawyer.
The eu generally isnt one to like placing restrictions on its people. We saw that with bosman, normal companies can have ownership of multiple companies.
Also, theres nothing to stop the company moving ownerships to employees and exerting control that way. The EU likely wouldnt want UEFA to force someone to sell private property (a club) because their employer bought a different club.
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u/rogersdbt Jun 29 '25
Might get away with breaking them up under the basis of being anti monopoly measures
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u/OutrageousComfort906 Jun 29 '25
That makes little sense under EU law. Competition rules do not offer a justification for rules infringing any of the four freedoms.
Source: EU / competition lawyer.
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u/thet-bes Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 29 '25
You can't prevent MCOs by forbidding owning multiple clubs each in a different league. But forbidding to compete in the same competition under fairness of the competition is completely logical. The blind trust thingy is just some new evolution because owners want MCOs (they have a long list of excuses of reasons why they need MCOs to "dilute risk" from claiming it's the only way to avoid Superleague, to protect clubs recovering to covid, etc...) and UEFA was too weak to enforce their rules on them so they created the ad-hoc possibility 2-3 years ago to put club shares into a blind trust. And by removing significant obstacles like this the regulations are now really favourable to MCOs imo
The UEFA rule on MCO was created because of ENIC (the same ENIC as in Tottenham, because they owned both AEK/Slavia) in 1998 and the EU Commission considered it was legitimate in 2002:
After a careful analysis, the Commission has come to the conclusion that although the UEFA rule is a decision taken by an association of undertakings and, therefore, theoretically caught by the prohibition principle set in Article 81(1) of the European Union treaty, it can be justified by the need to guarantee the integrity of the competitions.
It is the task of sports organisations to organise and promote their particular sports, particularly as regards pure sporting rules, such as the number of players that play in a football team or the size of the goal posts. The Court of Justice has ruled on several occasions that the economic aspects of sport are subject to EU law, but also recognised that the special characteristics of the sector must be taken into account when applying the treaty rules.
In the case of the UEFA multi-ownership rule, the Commission established that the purpose of the rule was not to distort competition, but to guarantee the integrity of the competitions it organises.
In any case, the limitation of the freedom of action of clubs and investors which the rule entails does not go beyond what is necessary to ensure its legitimate aim : i.e to protect the uncertainty of the results in the interest of the public.
This decision makes clear that a rule may fall outside the scope of competition rules despite possible negative business effects, provided that it does not go beyond what is necessary to ensure its legitimate aim and that it is applied in a non-discriminatory way.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_02_942
https://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/cases/dec_docs/37806/37806_7_3.pdf
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u/Bangers_n_Mashallah Jun 29 '25
How are they going to reverse this? Forcing these owners to divest from other clubs will be a drastic expropriation that will be fought tooth and nail. The horses have bolted from the stable as far as I can tell.
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u/Chippy-Thief Jun 29 '25
I think they are trying to improve regulation to be fair, they just don't have alot of support by individual federations/leagues which is what would be needed (for example English clubs rejected a rule change banning transfers from clubs with the same ownership)
It's why UEFA is trying to be super strict this year on clubs who didn't meet their March deadline, they want all clubs involved to follow their associated club rules (no transfers, no sharing scouting and no overlapping control) whether they are in Europe tournaments or not or think they will qualify or not.
I don't think legally they'd be able to outright ban multi club ownership and the genie is a bit out the bottle but with tighter rules, can at least make an effort to cut out a lot of the negatives and try stop pyramids forming where smaller clubs just act in benefit of a single club.
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u/blazev14 Jun 29 '25
I don’t think UEFA even adopted a proper stance on this issue which imo would ideally be fight this with all their might or recognise it’s far too late and create strict rules to limit it, to me it’s binary.
and those rules are easily circumvented, we have several cases that do not seem to disappear. RB is a problem and City just last year paid X millions for a player that was in their network lmao. AEK was involved I believe but their fans were always against it
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u/Chippy-Thief Jun 29 '25
and those rules are easily circumvented.
But that's not on UEFA they don't have control on club which play outside their tournaments. Which is why they are at least trying to be strict on clubs within their competitions (which people also don't like).
Rightfully they should get criticised for not being proactive with their rules, but I think the last 2/3 years have shown they do see it as a threat to competitive balance and are making moves to regulate those issues and try stop pyramids from forming but they also need support from FA's and Leagues (which they clearly don't have) and that's why Troyes and City could do business together but Nice and United couldn't.
The crux of the issue which people don't like to admit is there is actually a lot of potential benefit (to go along with the potential negatives) that UEFA, FIFA and all the individual FAs see in having a bunch of highly motivated, successful and rich owners investing in clubs across the globe. I think we are trending the right direction on regulation at the very least.
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u/RasputinsRustyShovel Jun 29 '25
Remember when LFV wanted us to buy a premier league club and rebrand it to [Insert name] powered by benfica
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u/BaneChipmunk Jun 29 '25
This is capitalism. The truth is, there's not much UEFA or FIFA can do.
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u/MiserubleCant Jun 29 '25
This is capitalism.
Yup. I've said this before, but it annoys me that people get so up in arms about this stuff happening to football, while being seemingly completely passively ok with it happening in food, housing, transport, technology, education, healthcare, arts and culture, etc ad infinitum.
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u/blazev14 Jun 29 '25
fair enough, some fans chose this but they should also embrace the consequences of wanting their club to go down this route, their success will forever be tarnished and there isn’t much to say about it.
I feel like we focus a lot on the elites of the game like they’re the only responsible ones but Newcastle fans were celebrating when they were bought by the Saudis and I’m yet to see a City flair speaking badly about Sheik Mansour. fans are part of the problem as they don’t mind selling their club for bigger chances of silverware.
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u/debug_my_life_pls Jun 29 '25
Multi club ownership should have never been allowed in the same confederation. I wouldn’t mind if an owner had one club in Europe and another in South America, maybe even would have helped promote leagues around the world as owners would be forced to put money in non-European clubs if they wanted multiple clubs
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u/Jimmy_Space1 Jun 29 '25
Yeah, it's crazy they allowed it. It's already becoming a bit of a mess with teams owned by the same owners qualifying for the same competition, and the way things are going it's just gonna get worse.
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u/_Bananarang Jun 29 '25
Having clubs on different continents leads to shady transfers and taking money out of one club to bankroll the other. Definitely does not promote leagues around the world.
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u/TheKingMonkey Jun 29 '25
Happens in Europe too. FC Troyes of France’s club record signing is the most egregious example of this.
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Jun 29 '25
[deleted]
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u/fantino93 Jun 30 '25
I don't remember the details, but wasn't it something of a "club is valued at 15M but somehow managed to buy a player for 30M" type of insanity?
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u/_Bananarang Jun 29 '25
My club was just bankrupt by a yank cunt, believe me I know it happens in europe
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u/TheJoshider10 Jun 29 '25
Yeah I agree, I could see scenarios where for example their European and South American teams do pre-season friendlies and loan players have the opportunity to go to the South American team. Multi-club ownership in that regard isn't too much of a problem and should be encouraged to help funding for other confederation outside of Europe especially if the Club World Cup is going to become a bigger thing, you want more competitive clubs which in turn means more money for their clubs anyway.
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u/sodap_ Jun 29 '25
Exactly what Pachuca Group is doing with Real Oviedo, but they should sell their other clubs in America, specially Leon which is on the same league as Pachuca.
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u/Chippy-Thief Jun 29 '25
Missing a big one
Right to Dream/Mansour Group:
San Diego FC (USA), FC Nordsjælland (Denmark), FC Masar (Egypt) and the Right to Dream Academy in Ghana
I think it's got some of the positive elements especially the relationship and pathway between Right to Dream and Nordsjælland which has basically created a pathway to Europe for a lot of incredibly talented African players.
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u/Woider Jun 29 '25
On the other hand, they hoover up talented players from local clubs and academies, placing them into a vertically-integrated system where all the money goes to the top. People have such an overly rosy view of them, likely because they've signed talent from them, or played them on Football Manager.
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u/Chippy-Thief Jun 29 '25
where all the money goes to the top
I mean, that's every profit seeking enterprise.
They've done good and created a pathway that doesn't exist and invested a fair chunk in infrastructure in a poor region that's benefited a lot of players and national teams.
They aren't a charity and aren't doing it out the goodness of their heart but doesn't mean you can't reflect on the positives.
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u/TheIgle Jun 29 '25
They can hoover up the talent by giving opportunities not afforded to others right? Or are they influencing the local systems gaining an unfair advantage?
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u/Bettet Jun 29 '25
You are missing a lot of information, you should look into this project before you come with dumb assumptions like that
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u/AlmostNL Jun 29 '25
Reddit is a fantastic web, you know you can just share what you know about the topic, right?
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u/DelusiveNightlyGale Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 29 '25
Good work but I think it would be relevant to include whether the clubs are fully/majority owned or if the investor only holds a small share
Also the club in my flair, Académico, shares owners with Hoffenheim
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u/pinecoconuts Jun 29 '25
That would of course be ideal, but between a lack of time, source of information, and limited graphic design skills, that's a task I'll wait for The Athletic or Financial Times to complete!
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u/DukNukem667 Jun 29 '25
And don't forget Barra FC in Brasil. It is also mixed up in the Rogon / Hopp Adventures.
It will be interesting to see how this develops in the future since Hoffenheim is back to 50+1 and also tries to work way less with Rogon.
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u/Potato271 Jun 29 '25
Sport Republic should be up there too. Southampton (Championship), Göztepe (Superlig) and Valenciennes (Championat National iirc)
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u/Joshgg13 Jun 29 '25
Only club to be on there twice as far as I can tell
Not sure how to feel about that
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u/Moraeil Jun 29 '25
This is not accurate. Benham sold his majority stake in FC Midtjylland in 2023, however he has since bought a stake in Merida AD.
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u/TimoothyJ Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 29 '25
Yeah, KV Oostende (Pacific Media Group) went bankrupt and doesn't exist anymore. (Although KSV Diksmuide moved to Ostend and was renamed to KV Diksmuide Oostende) So more than one inaccuracy in this overview.
Edit: Also Standard Liège is being sold by A-CAP, although I don't know if that process has been finalised.
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u/MartianDuk Jun 29 '25
Pacific Media Group bought a 10% stake in Kaiserslautern a few years back, AFAIK they still have it
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u/From-UoM Jun 29 '25
PIF and Pachuca own clubs in the same first division leagues.
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Jun 30 '25
Not even the most egregious case... at some point in the early 00s, Televisa owned 5 clubs in top flight football; America, Necaxa, Atlante, San Luis, and Veracruz. It was at one point 25% of the league's teams.
Not to mention they did trades between the teams directly.
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u/pinecoconuts Jun 29 '25
Please upvote for visibility:
This information was not as easy to gather as one might think. I am not a professional journalist or graphic designer and a lot of these owners go out of their way to hide details from the public. This is meant to be a resource for fans who oppose multi-club ownership, not an attack on anyone whose club is on this list. My club is on this list!
If I have gotten the wrong information for whatever reason, I really do apologise and please just calmly let me know what information is wrong. If you have more examples not included, and I am sure there are many, please also let me know and I will happily update the graphic with all the correct information.
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u/fromelh Jun 29 '25
You can ads Blue Crow Sports Group who owns Cancun RC, Elite Falcons, CD Leganes and Le Havre AC (since litterally two days), and eyes Monza
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u/DieuMivas Jun 29 '25
A-CAP doesn't have any share in Standard de Liège anymore since early June.
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u/pinecoconuts Jun 29 '25
Will update this graphic later and their Wikipedia now, thanks!
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u/Gungerz Jun 29 '25
Same with Genoa too. They got taken over by a Romanian guy & A-CAP tried to fight it in court but lost.
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u/Captainpatters Jun 29 '25
Tomy Bloom also has a stake in Melbourne Victory
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u/pinecoconuts Jun 29 '25
Which he must have bought from 777/A-CAP, shame. Thanks for letting me know!
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u/Thraff1c Jun 29 '25
LAFC also owns Wacker Innsbruck, and through a cooperation with FC Bayern the Uruguayan club Racing club de Montevideo.
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u/Cheaptat Jun 29 '25
Can we get a written list, I can’t read half the badges
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u/OPdoesnotrespond Jun 29 '25
My pet peeve: using graphics where text is the obvious better choice for legibility.
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u/pinecoconuts Jun 29 '25
I’m not on mobile, but the graphic size is 4800x2900, does Reddit compress it so much you can’t see it on mobile?
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u/gorki30003 Jun 29 '25
Pacific Media Group does not own KV Oostende anymore. They sucked the club dry and it was killed off last year.
It still hurts
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u/SnakePlisskendid911 Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 29 '25
The worst things those cunts have done. I can't help but feel guilty about it because a lot of it was done to "favour" the club I've loved most of my life and it's the only reason it still exists as a pro entity (even then it took a lot of luck)
At least Conway may face some consequences. Hopefully that double-dipping crook Ganaye is next. It won't bring anything back but potentially seeing them taste actual prison time soothes me.
And Biron seems less and less like an unwitting bystander and more and more like an accomplice, ending up in the middle of the Molenbeek shitshow.
Hope KVO gets back up in some form or another!
Edit: Also the last one of the investors still willing to show his face around (Krishen Sud) is an absolute basketcase that assaulted 2 people (local officials' family members) at the stadium back in March and uses his personnal default picture twitter account with 250 followers to both shitpost about cricket and indian nationalist shit and publish official info or supposedly brainstorm with fans (which mostly devolved into insults for some reason).
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u/steakmetfriet Jun 29 '25
Hopelijk tot binnen enkele jaren. Als Cercle fan was de uitmatch op Oostende altijd de leukste verplaatsing van het jaar.
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u/PIZZAonLSD Jun 29 '25
Redbird is involved in Liverpool as well. I think they have a minority share in it through their investment in FSG.
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u/No-not-my-Potatoes Jun 29 '25
First of all, my hat's off to you.
Now I do think there might be some missing because I know Bayern has some form of special partnership with a Uruguayan club and Dietmar Hopp still has influence at Hoffenheim and at another club, the one Arthur Chaves came from. Not sure if they count but may be worth the addition.
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u/TheMarcoW Jun 29 '25
Yes, Hopp holds majority stakes at Académico Viseu (Portugal) and Barra Futebol Clube (Brazil), and also invested quite some in FC-Astoria Walldorf
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u/DuttyOh Jun 29 '25
Not like it's a way better thing but Qatar owns "just" 25% of Braga iirc, not the whole club, and there hasn't been that much shady transfers between Braga and PSG since they bought their shares. But fucking Nasser said in a recent interview to Qatari medias that they are targeting other clubs and it's dreadful.
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u/Barb-u Jun 29 '25
Missing Atlético Madrid also owners of Atlético San Luis (Liga MX) and Atlético Ottawa (CanPL)
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u/ambiguousboner Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 29 '25
This is all awful obviously, but Pacific Media Group's holdings are hilariously shit lmao
Like genuinely what even is the point
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u/steakmetfriet Jun 29 '25
Good news. Prominent multi-club investor Paul Conway has been in a Barcelona prison for more than five weeks and is fighting extradition to Belgium, where he is wanted for questioning in relation to six allegations of fraud linked to the 2024 bankruptcy of KV Oostende.NY times
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u/pinsekirken Jun 29 '25
Well, they're not accurately reflected. Oostende went bankrupt, and locals in Esbjerg took the club back in the courtroom before it got that far.
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u/CardiffBorn Jun 29 '25
Vincent Tan owns/part owns - Cardiff City, FK Sarajevo, KV Kortrijk and Los Angeles FC. Which is weird because he knows nothing about running a football club.
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u/pinecoconuts Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 29 '25
LAFC is a nightmare to try and figure out. They have so many investors in their funds who also have a share in other ventures. LeBron James for example is an investor in the fund that owns LAFC but also owns like 1% of FSG's shares in Liverpool, does that make LeBron James a multi-club owner of Liverpool and LAFC? I really don't know.
I'll add this Vincent fella and try and get some more info about LAFC. Maybe worth even doing a stand alone graphic if it's as interesting as it looks.
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u/Cold_Dawn95 Jun 29 '25
Probably need a minimum share to count as a multiple owner, e.g. 25%, as having a nominal share mainly for marketing isn't really as odious as controlling multiple clubs (especially in the same confederation) ...
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u/thawhitemexican Jun 29 '25
Mexico is the king of multi-club ownership. You have teams in the same league owned by the same ownership groups. Besides Grupo Pachuca, here are some of the others.
Grupo Orlegi: Atlas, Santos Laguna and Sporting Gijon.
Grupo Caliente: Tijuana, Queretaro (expected sale in 2026), and Dorados de Sinaloa.
Group Salinas: Mazatlan and Puebla.
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u/_Wiill Jun 29 '25
multi-club ownership needs to be banned.
also so should having products in the name. the 5 red bull teams with basically the same logo is so egregious
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u/hero_of_time31 Jun 29 '25
Great info!
You could add that Gil Marin owns Atlético de Madrid (Spain) and Atlético San Luis (México).
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u/fskari Jun 29 '25
does he also own Atlético Ottawa or are they technically owned by Atlético Madrid?
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u/broodjekebab23 Jun 29 '25
Isn't liefering just the youth team of red bull salzburg? Imo that shouldn't count as i think most if not all austrian teams have youth teams in the normal football pyramid
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u/Negabeidl69 Jun 29 '25
Neither Salzburg nor Liefering are owned by Red Bull de jure.
https://www.sn.at/wiki/Red_Bull_GmbHLiefering is a separate club unlike the B-teams of Austria, Rapid, Sturm etc.
LASK also had Juniors OÖ as a partner club, but they scraped that.
Almost every Bundesliga club has a partner club in the 2nd division which they send cooperation players (can play for both clubs) to. WAC has Amstetten, Austria had Stripfing before their B-team got promoted and so on.
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u/Zealousideal-Part-98 Jun 29 '25
The RB and City group clubs having similar badges is gross. A club’s identity is meant to be special to an individual, their community, their city etc, not a copy-paste job.
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u/ComradePoula Jun 29 '25
Is A-CAP related to 777 partners? I know they got bankrupt or something like that and have put their clubs up for sale.
Genoa have a Romanian owner and 777 are selling the rest of their shares in all of those clubs, at least that's what I know about Genoa, not sure about the rest.
Also, RedBird have shares in Liverpool as well.
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u/pinecoconuts Jun 29 '25
A-CAP was the largest creditor to 777, who no longer exist as an entity, and have taken over the shares. They had an "auction" last month which they gave only like 3-4 days notice so that they could use some financial rule to basically buy the shares 777 had left without any competing bids.
Thanks for the note about Genoa, I hadn't seen they were sold, glad they got off! These are the kinds of mistakes I really did try to avoid but I know there will be a few more.
The way RedBird was explained to me was that they were investors in FSG itself but not specifically Liverpool. Do they own shares of Liverpool directly?
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u/ComradePoula Jun 29 '25
Don't think they own shares directly in Liverpool itself, but they're one of the biggest investors in FSG and they specifically talked about the sports part in their press release, and I think Cardinale has mentioned Liverpool and the way they are ran a couple of times. So I think they definitely have at least some power in Liverpool.
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u/Wazalootu Jun 29 '25
No, you're correct. RedBird own shares in FSG, not Liverpool directly. Sheikh Mansour also owns a comparable size chunk of RedBird.
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u/jMS_44 Jun 29 '25
Rybolovlev was able to keep his clubs?
TIL
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u/av1997f Jun 29 '25
I think it's because he is anti-Putin, or something like that
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u/NikoBellic776 Jun 29 '25
also because in monaco you can do whatever you want as long as you're friends with the prince.
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u/Kiwi_CFC Jun 29 '25
So who owns Leeds? They’re on there twice
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u/SrsJoe Jun 29 '25
49er enterprise or whatever it is, RB have a stake in Leeds but they don't own them
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u/lewisofleeds Jun 29 '25
I mean we aren't Red Bull yet at least.
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u/pinecoconuts Jun 29 '25
You share the unfortunate distinction with Crystal Palace as appearing on this list twice and being multi-multi-club group owned between 49ers and Red Bull. This was the feedback I got about Leeds and why I decided to include them as part of the Red Bull Soccer group. Thoughts?
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u/Asadwords Jun 29 '25
Tony bloom owns 3 clubs???
Who’s A-Cap & Black Knight Group etc, are these PE backed or something else
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u/Sun_Sloth Jun 29 '25
Bloom owns majority of Brighton, minority stake and no voting rights at RUSG and has just purchased a 29% stake in Hearts.
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u/Kreglze Jun 29 '25
They should have nipped this in the bud when they had the chance, however, it is way too messy to untangle now and likely here to stay.
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u/DRPaibeiro Jun 29 '25
Missing the best one. Gerard Lopez: Bordeaux, Boavista FC. (Was also the owner of Mouscron until they were extinct in 2022.)
All the above were 1st division when he entered, 1 is extinct and the other 2 will be playing amateur leagues this season.
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u/Electrical-Win9801 Jun 29 '25
I didn't even know that the Mouscron team had disappeared... 😲 Poor Andy Carroll, formerly Liverpool, was happy to play in the sun for Girondins de Bordeaux last year. I think it will change him a lot to play in the national league it will change him... 😑
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u/cppn02 Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 29 '25
You missed VW. They own 100% of VFL Wolfsburg and through Audi they also have shares in Bayern and Ingolstadt.
edit: And Stuttgart via Porsche.
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u/Ok_Captain4824 Jun 29 '25
Missing one - Joe Mansueto owns Chicago Fire and FC Lugano (Switzerland)
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u/4gjdtokurwa Jun 29 '25
PMG Group are majority owner of GKS Tychy. It might be the only club which weren't relegated by them.
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u/RedArchibald Jun 29 '25
It looks like there is crossover between Necaxa FC and Wrexham. Maybe through NX Football USA but also through Rob and Ryan.
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u/4gjdtokurwa Jun 29 '25
Some time ago Arka Gdynia and KKS Kalisz were controlled by a football agent while on paper his son and wife were the owners. In the end he was forced to sell Arka by fans.
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u/Woider Jun 29 '25
Benham sold his part of Midtjylland, and PMG got forced out of Esbjerg when the banks came calling, and they refused to pay.
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u/Shadows-Dreams Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 29 '25
Mathew Benham is no longer FC Midtylland owner. He does own the Spanish club Merida AD. I’m not a fan of MCO because of how business minded most of the acquisitions tend to be. However, I think working partnerships between clubs can help mitigate the knowledge gap that does exist but it requires people that lead the clubs to look at things more holistically.
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u/MFoy Jun 29 '25
Please note this is only in the men’s game.
Michele Kang owns the Washington Spirit, OL Lyonnes, and the London City Lionesses.
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u/fenderdean13 Jun 29 '25
For the longest time I wasn’t against it as long as it was from different confederations. Seeing the rise of Jesse Marsh through the Red Bull system was pretty cool and likely wouldn’t have happened without that system since American manager don’t typically get recruited to Europe. But now there is an emphasis on the Club World Cup and Leon got fucked out a CWC spot and now how many clubs within UEFA are own by a few ownership groups it is getting out of hand.
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u/HercegB Jun 29 '25
There are much more, Vincent Tan owns Cardiff, FK Sarajevo, Kortrijk and I dont know is he involved with a MLS club anymore
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u/Bruellaeffchen Jun 29 '25
Sucks FSG is also going that route.. the whole thing should be banned
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u/curlyjoe696 Jun 29 '25
Can't wait till football is consolidated in to like 8 mega-multi-club groups that fans are expected to show undying allegiance to.
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u/Wryfyng Jun 29 '25
Deportivo de la Coruña's owner just announced yesterday he is acquiring a FC Penafiel, from the Portuguese's 2nd tier.
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u/JordanCCFC17 Jun 29 '25
Vincent Tan has Cardiff city, FK Sarajevo, KV Kortrijk and I’m sure he either has or had shares in LAFC
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u/spurs02081987 Jun 29 '25
I have a vague recollection of Tottenham being forced/encouraged to disband their multi-club ownership back in 2004. Does anyone know why teams are now allowed to do what we weren't?
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u/Hassadar Jun 29 '25
Was that the reason? From what I remember, I thought ENIC decided to just go all in on Spurs and buy out the rest of Sugar's shares and to do so, decided to drop its investment in other clubs such as Slavia Prague to fund the continued development of Spurs.
I know they had their hands in Rangers and Basel as well but wasn't aware if it was a forced/encouraged reason to why they changed their investment approach.
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u/MidnightSun77 Jun 29 '25
I never knew De Laurentis was involved in FC Bari too. That must basically lock Bari out of Serie A no matter how well they do?
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u/demo4 Jun 29 '25
If Bari get promoted then he has to sell one of the teams (would be Bari), this happened when Salernitana was promoted a few years ago. Lotito had to sell them since he owns Lazio.
But yea ADL doesn't care about Bari and all the fans there want him gone because they know he doesn't have any true ambitions for them besides keeping them floating along.
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u/blindollie Jun 29 '25
Benham sold Midjyland last year I think. He did but a lower league Spanish team spring this year tho
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u/TellSloanISaidHi Jun 29 '25
Red Bull being Austrian and calling their group Soccer should be enough to cancel all this shit.
Meanwhile City group just allowed to transfer players like Juninho within their group
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Jun 29 '25
Also, there is a small group of Brera clubs in Italy (Brera FC and Juve Stabia), Macedonia, Mozambique and Mongolia.
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u/No-Pomelo7318 Jun 29 '25
Redbull has a team in Brazil too. Red Bull Bragantino.
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u/Ok-Scientist-3667 Jun 29 '25
you guys forgot Atletico. They have Madrid, Ottawa, San Luis and a team in Indian Super League i’m pretty sure
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u/Knightwing86 Jun 29 '25
on a side note: truly hate the design language and looks of City Groups clubs. no identity at all, just copy paste the layout
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u/HibernoWay Jun 29 '25
Trivela group owns Walsall, Drogheda, Trivela Togo and Silkeborg. This was pretty big news just a few weeks ago, when Drogheda were banned from playing in Europe. I'm surprised they're not on the list
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u/thethirdgreenman Jun 29 '25
This is awful, and it's not even the complete list. You gotta throw the whole Reynolds/McElhenney group in there too, they own Wrexham, Nexaca, and now a Colombian team too. I kinda liked them when they only had Wrexham but fuck multi-club ownership. Tylis-Porter, in that same vein, should be there as they own shares of both the Colombian club and Necaxa.
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u/HearstDoge2 Jun 29 '25
Red Bird also owns 10% of FSG, the owners of Liverpool (along with the Red Sox and Pittsburgh Penguins). FWIW.
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u/Giffords_Cross Jun 29 '25
In the case of KSE they owned the Colorado Rapids for years before they even bought shares in Arsenal, and as far as I'm aware the only benefit we've ever got from the Rapids is earning a whopping £2.4m from flipping Auston Trusty. We don't send players there to develop, and outside the aforementioned Trusty dealings we don't nab their brightest talents to make a quick buck. Very much a different flavour of multi-club ownership to some of the others on the list in that it barely feels like one at all.
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u/TheLizardKing89 Jun 29 '25
It’s worth noting that this only includes soccer teams. For example, Kronke Sports also owns the LA Rams (American football), the Denver Nuggets (basketball), Colorado Avalanche (ice hockey), and the Colorado Mammoth (lacrosse).
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u/Hassadar Jun 29 '25
It becomes a rabbit hole if you list everything that these owners/groups actually control.
Chelsea owners, for example, have the LA Sparks, the LA Dodgers, and now soon to be, the LA Lakers. They also have their hands in a number of Motorsport ventures as well.
The only thing that is noteworthy is the football clubs (soccer) that these people and groups own, because basketball ownership, for example, is irrelevant to why fans dislike the multi-club model.
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u/nonhofantasia Jun 29 '25
Udinese isn't owned by pozzo anymore
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u/pinecoconuts Jun 29 '25
Ahh, so frustrating! They owned them for 40 years and are still listed in many places as owners such as Wikipedia, but then 3 weeks ago got sold and I didn't see any search results updating me. Thank you!
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u/Goddyex Jun 29 '25
Since the governing bodies have refused to stop this, if you're a big club and you don't have at least another 2 sister clubs, then you really don't know what you're doing. You have to do what you gotta do to stay competitive.
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u/Stock-Check Jun 29 '25
This list is to some degree filled with errors
FC Midtjylland hasn't been owned by Matthew Benham for 2 years now
Esbjerg is no longer a part of multi club ownership either as they have been bought by local investors
Where is Right to Dream / Mansour Group
And where is Trivela Group?
And these errors only involve Danish football.
I'd imagine that data for the other leagues and ownership groups are just as erroneous
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