UEFA details trend and risks of teams in multi-club owner groups in $28BN European soccer industry

GENEVA (AP) — More than 300 soccer clubs were in ownership groups involving multiple teams in a trend driven by American investors that could threaten the integrity of European games, UEFA said on Thursday.

UEFA detailed the growing popularity of “multi-club ownership” – with investors, if not always the fans – in its annual analysis of the European soccer economy it predicts was worth about 26 billion euros ($27.9 billion) in revenue for clubs in 2023.

Multi-club groups led to an “increased risk of seeing two clubs with the same owner or investor facing each other in the same competition, creating potential integrity risks at the European level,” UEFA director of research Andrea Traverso acknowledged in the 118-page report.

The report was published while two teams among 13 in the Abu Dhabi-backed City Football Group network — Manchester City and Girona — are second, respectively, in the English Premier League and La Liga standings and shape to qualify for next season’s Champions League.

UEFA already used competition entry rules drafted 25 years ago to act against two American multi-club groups plus one English owner ahead of this season’s European competitions.

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“The multi-club investment trend has been fueled predominantly by US-based investors, with 44 multi-club investment groups originating in the United States,” UEFA said.

Investors have been attracted to clubs in Europe, UEFA suggested, “where access to players and business fundamentals is deemed to be better than elsewhere.”

UEFA said fewer than 40 clubs worldwide were in ownership networks in 2012. Now it identified 105 top-division clubs in Europe having a “cross-investment relationship” with at least one other club. There were 112 more European clubs involved who play in lower tier divisions.

American investor groups combined to have majority stakes in 37 top-tier European clubs, the UEFA report said, and 65 clubs in total – almost five times more than the next highest total of 14 clubs in Italian ownership groups.

American ownership groups include RedBird whose prize asset is AC Milan, Eagle Football which has Lyon, and 777 Partners, whose pursuit of English club Everton has intensified scrutiny on legal issues for its companies in the U.S.

RedBird and another American-backed group, Aston Villa’s owner V Sports, were investigated by a UEFA-appointed panel last year. Milan and its French sibling Toulouse, plus Villa and Vitória Guimarães in Portugal all qualified for European competitions.

UEFA judged the multi-club owners had some “decisive influence” over both teams and the cases led to board members being removed, investment stakes cut or divested, one-year transfer embargoes, and ending shared use of scouting databases.

“These changes substantially restrict the investors’ influence and decision-making power over more than one club,” UEFA said last July.

Those interventions were seen as tougher than a 2017 ruling by a different UEFA panel that accepted separation in Red Bull’s ties to Leipzig and Salzburg that let both enter the Champions League. When those clubs met in the 2018-19 Europa League, Salzburg won both games and Leipzig failed to advance from their group.

Asked last week about a likely Man City-Girona investigation, UEFA general secretary Theodore Theodoridis said it was not yet appropriate to comment.

Collusion in the transfer market between clubs in shared ownership has been cited by UEFA as another integrity risk, though its latest research suggested this was “perhaps not the main (driver of multi-club purchases), as most people tend to think.”

UEFA also insisted its club monitoring rules previously known as Financial Fair Play will “prevent advantages from related-party loans or transfers.”

While being in a multi-club network has been welcomed at Girona, fans have protested against American owners in recent weeks in England, Belgium and France.

Crystal Palace and Molenbeek fans have been unhappy with Eagle, and Strasbourg fans have objected to being seen as less important to owner BlueCo which has a multi-billion dollar investment in Chelsea.

UEFA acknowledged on Thursday the multi-club trend “marks a significant shift in traditional ownership structures, with far-reaching implications for the interconnected relationships between clubs, sponsors and fans.”

The UEFA-recognized Football Supporters Europe group has urged soccer bodies to “adopt firm regulations before the whole game is (irredeemably) compromised.”

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