For the new generation of super-rich football investors – risk-taking billionaires, American hedge funds, wealthy Gulf states – the appeal of a new team ownership model lay in its simple strategy.
By pooling not just a single team but multiple teams and hundreds of players into expansive multi-club networks, these newly wealthy owners believed they could leverage efficiency, best practices, and volume to achieve success on the field.
Red Bull, the energy drink maker, pioneered this model. Manchester City, the English champions financed by the wealth of the United Arab Emirates, expanded it through their City Football Group. Jim Ratcliffe, chairman of chemicals giant INEOS, brought him to Manchester United when he took a major stake in the club last year.
But one of the biggest attractions of multi-club ownership has now run into a major challenge: European soccer’s governing body is changing the rules.
The problem, European soccer leaders said, is that matches between teams controlled by the same ownership group could compromise the fairness of continental competitions and open the door to self-contracting in soccer’s player exchange market, which moves 7 billion dollars a year.
Aleksander Ceferin, European soccer’s top administrator, has tried to bridge the divide. In a podcast interview last year, he suggested the multi-club model posed a danger to the sport, even as he courted investors by saying rules on such ownership could be relaxed under the new Champions League format.
The current flashpoint involves one of the most famous stories of the recently concluded European soccer season: Spanish club Girona and its talented 20-year-old Brazilian striker named Sávio.
Girona finished third in the Spanish league last season, its fourth year in the country’s top division. That performance earned the team a place next season in the Champions League, Europe’s richest club competition, and attracted the attention of some of the continent’s biggest clubs to Girona’s best talent.
When it came to signing Sávio, Manchester City had an advantage. Its owner, brother of the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, is also the holder of the largest shareholding in Girona. So the next stop for Girona’s rising star did not seem to be in doubt. The news was all but confirmed in February, when social media influencer Fabrizio Romano, who specializes in player trade news, declared the deal was done.
“Manchester City have signed all the documents to sign Sávio from July 1,” he declared in a message to his more than 20 million followers on X that began with a red siren emoji.
Sávio’s rights, however, did not actually belong to Girona. The player had been on loan from French club Troyes, which is also part of the City Football Group.
Such multiple participations have become common in world football in the last half-decade: data from UEFA, European football’s governing body, has identified more than 180 teams around the world, employing more than 6,500 players, who are now part of networks of multiple clubs.
That has created a problem for UEFA. In the past, it had focused primarily on how team ownership affected its competitions, ruling that a single owner could not control multiple teams in the same event.
But with multi-club control on the rise and critics complaining about the integrity of Europe’s biggest tournaments (not to mention fears that proud, historic clubs are being reduced to mere feeder teams), UEFA has introduced temporary rule changes. .
Under the revised regulations, if an owner reduces his stake in one of his clubs to less than 30 percent, both teams would be allowed to play in UEFA tournaments, provided the teams also ensure they are managed separately. , without shared members of the board of directors or other direct commercial or sporting links.
These rules will be granted only for a season, giving owners more time to sell a stake in a competing club below the threshold required by UEFA.
Such a deal was made last season for the American owners of AC Milan and French team Toulouse, prompting reports in November that Red Bird, the company that controls both teams, was looking for a buyer for Toulouse.
The revised rules on player movement, however, will be strict. Clubs involved in multi-club ownership deals would be prohibited from loaning or exchanging players between their teams if they were participating in the same competition. (This rule was also in effect for Milan and several other teams last season).
That would mean that Sávio’s much-heralded arrival at Premier League champions Manchester City would have to be put on hold if both City and Girona were to play in the Champions League next season. He could still take part, but it would be unlikely that he could do so in City’s sky blue kit.
(The same problem could affect a possible move of Jean-Clair Todibo, a defender from the French club Nice, owned by Mr. Ratcliffe, to Manchester United. Both United and Nice have qualified for a different UEFA competition, the Europa League, next year. season “We understand the UEFA regulations,” Mr. Ratcliffe’s company, INEOS, said in a statement, adding: “Our goal is for both clubs to play in the Europa League. We now look forward to the Europa League. UEFA’s decision.
City Football Group said it had been in contact with UEFA officials for months to find a way to allow both Manchester City and Girona to play in the Champions League. All clubs had this past Monday as a deadline to present the final documentation.
UEFA declined to comment on the proposed deal, but a final decision on the team’s eligibility is expected to be announced next month.