I was recently invited to contribute to a panel at the annual Financial Times Business of Football Summit, looking at whether the multi-club ownership (MCO) model is viable.
Hosted by the FT’s Sam Agini, the panel also included Alejandro Irarragori, the owner of two clubs in Mexico’s Liga MX and Sporting de Gijon in Spain; Kara Nortman, the managing partner of Monarch Collective, which has stakes in a number of NWSL clubs, including Angel City; and Lauren Holiday, former star of the US Women’s national team and director of Mercury/13.
The conference headlines were understandably made by Richard Masters, the Premier League chief executive, who spoke about the introduction of Premier League Plus, a new direct-to-consumer streaming service; Richard Kogan, the chair of the Independent Football Regulator; and our old friend Javier Tebas, who once again put the boot into the Premier League.
You would therefore be forgiven for missing our panel’s contribution, but as Jade Thirlwall says, “That’s showbiz, baby!”
As always on such occasions, there is not enough time to discuss all the issues, especially with a massive subject like multi-club ownership, so today’s article will look at this in more depth.
The review will be structured as follows:
Growth in multi-club ownership
Types of multi-club investment
Investment rationale
Objectives/benefits
Benefits to junior clubs
Drawbacks
Regulations
Trends
Conclusion
Growth in multi-club ownership
There is little doubt that multi-club ownership is one of the most important trends in the world of football. According to UEFA’s latest club investment report, at the end of 2025 there were more than 345 clubs worldwide that were part of a multi-club investment structure, compared with fewer than 60 ten years ago.
UEFA said that multi-club ownership is now “firmly established in the Big Five leagues, while more than a third of the top division clubs are part of an MCO network in Belgium, Denmark, Portugal, Scotland and Switzerland.
In fact, no fewer than 122 top division clubs in Europe (16% of the total) have at least one cross-investment relationship with another club.
That said, the number of multi-club investment transactions has fallen in the last two years, though there were still 33 deals that took place in both 2024 and 2025.
The nature of the deals has also changed, as the proportion of minority stake transactions has increased from 22% in 2022 to 36% in 2025.
Three-quarters of the Premier League is now linked to an MCO, though the English club is generally to be found at the top of the food chain, which makes sense, given the financial dominance of the division.
The growth has been driven by a combination of macroeconomic factors and global investment trends.
The numerous financial weaknesses in the game, exacerbated by the impact of the COVID pandemic, have resulted in numerous buying opportunities, especially for investors looking for a cheap entry point into football.
As a recent example, the collapse in TV rights in Ligue 1 has left French clubs in a vulnerable position, open to new money coming in from abroad.
Furthermore, the perceived under-valuation of the assets, i.e. football clubs, has attracted the attention of US-based investors, with 50 multi-club investment groups originating in America.
Nevertheless, there are obvious concerns about conflicts of interest, especially when two clubs under the same ownership compete in the same domestic league or European competition.
Indeed, UEFA said, “The rise of multi-club investment has the potential to pose a material threat to the integrity of European club competitions with a growing risk of seeing two clubs with the same owner or investor facing each other on the pitch.”
