The Grasshoppers indirectly become part of a network in which FC Bayern Munich also plays an important role. After Fosun President Jenny Wang from China, Stacy Johns is once again a woman on the GC board.
The new GC management team: András Gurovits, the new president Stacy Johns, board member Larry Freedman and Harald Gärtner, head of Europe for Los Angeles FC.
Roger Albrecht/Freshfocus
After a year of negotiations, rumors and conversations, the time had come: On Wednesday evening, the new GC owners presented themselves at a media conference in the rowing section boathouse. Stacy Johns, chief financial officer at Los Angeles FC (LAFC), is the new GC president. She will occasionally be in Zurich and someone else is being sought for day-to-day business.
Johns traveled to Zurich accompanied by LAFC managing director Larry Freedman, Freedman will manage the business on the GC board of directors. András Gurovits remains on the third board of directors as a representative of the GC Foundation. As before, GC retains the trademark and pre-emption rights. It is not known how much money LAFC paid for GC. “Sorry, we won’t say anything about that,” said Johns. It is likely to be less than the approximately 7 million francs that Fosun transferred to the last Swiss owners in 2020.
Americans instead of Chinese: Formally, the GC construct remains the same. In terms of content, however, a lot is going to change at GC. Harald Gärtner is the name of the man who will take a close look at the company’s day-to-day operations. The LAFC’s head of Europe will examine processes and structures on campus in the coming weeks and make the appropriate recommendations. Gärtner is considered to be well informed and may have recommended the Grasshoppers to LAFC.
For Matt Jackson, Fosun emissary from England since June, time in Switzerland is up. The sports director Bernt Haas and the head coach Bruno Berner will keep their jobs. Gärtner, who was sports director at FC Ingolstadt for many years and most recently worked in Klagenfurt, is likely to make one or two recommendations regarding the squad in the short term. GC has not yet made a transfer this winter break. It is unclear whether Gärtner will take on a permanent position at GC.
At least in the coming weeks, Gärtner’s role will be important. The German said he and his team had been working intensively with the team in recent months. “The team has a certain quality,” said Gärtner, “we want to stabilize this quality and finish the championship decently.” Success cannot only be bought with money.
How much the Americans want to invest remained an open question. “We’ll see how much money it will take,” Freedman said simply. It is more important to get in touch with the “community” and to develop a “common spirit”. Freedman is also clear that getting there will only be possible with success on the pitch.
Basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson is one of the club owners
Unlike the opaque Fosun Group, Los Angeles FC has broad and transparent support thanks to its prominent ownership. “Our shareholders don’t just give a name and face for a nice class photo – everyone has their role in the club,” said Freeman, “sooner or later the owners will also come to the stadium in Zurich.”
The owners include basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson, world footballer Mia Hamm and actor Will Ferrell. The wealthy financier Bennett Rosenthal, co-founder of a billion-dollar investment fund, sits on the board. LAFC chairman Peter Guber, also one of the owners, is a film producer and has shares in the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team and the Golden State Warriors basketball club. At the beginning of his career, Guber produced the famous film “Taxi Driver”. There’s a lot of glamour. But also competence.
📰 #LAFC has entered a long-term strategic partnership with Grasshopper Club Zürich of the Swiss Super League.
The partnership includes LAFC becoming the new majority shareholder in Grasshopper Football Ltd.
— LAFC (@LAFC) January 17, 2024
Los Angeles FC only bought into the closed Major League Soccer (MLS) in 2018, but has since become one of the league’s most valuable franchises. LAFC won the championship in 2022, only narrowly missing out on their second title in the final in December. With 22,000 seats, its own stadium is almost always sold out. Former Italian international Giorgio Chiellini recently ended his career with LAFC and is now a scout. The recent signing of France’s world champion captain Hugo Lloris underlines the ambitions.
The Chinese’s interest in GC had long since cooled down
LAFC is not only considered reliable and reputable in the MLS. The USA is hosting the 2026 World Cup and there is a certain sense of optimism in football in the country. And money has been plentiful since the league’s billion-dollar deal for media rights with Apple. If specialist knowledge is missing in the sporting area, it is imported. LAFC coach Steven Cherundolo played in Hanover for a long time and completed his coaching training in Germany.
The Americans’ pragmatic approach is based on the awareness that sport primarily means show, entertainment and, above all, one thing: business. For LAFC, the Grasshoppers will be part of this business in the future. It remains to be seen how important the role of the Zurich branch will be. The only thing that is clear is that Fosun should not serve as a role model for this.
The Chinese’s interest in the Grasshoppers had already cooled down a year ago. They had never made it clear what they wanted to do with their club in Switzerland. This became clear again and again in the collaboration with Wolverhampton Wanderers, the Fosun club in the Premier League. There was nothing sustainable to be seen on the GC campus. Toti Gomes, at GC for a year and a half, made it to the Premier League. Hayao Kawabe at least goes to Standard Liège. Bendeguz Bolla to his competitor Servette in Geneva.
The GC President Sky Sun took his leave for the Christmas holidays thirteen months ago and didn’t show up again. Bill Pan was the name of an accountant from the Fosun headquarters who stopped by Zurich briefly last spring. At the same time, Fosun had commissioned the New York investment bank Moelis to look for a buyer for GC.
Former GC President Sky Sun.
Youtube
Time passed, Fosun paid the bills. In October, the financial portal Bloomberg reported loose interest from Los Angeles FC in a takeover. Fosun is said to have initially offered 10 million francs as the purchase price.
The GC adventure cost Fosun dearly. The Chinese wanted to be involved for a minimum of five years; the Champions League was the goal. That turned into three and a half years. They cost Fosun around 45 million francs. After promotion, we were ranked 8th and 7th. Chicago Fire, owners of FC Lugano since 2021, have a much more positive balance sheet, and not just in terms of sport.
Against this background, the task for the new owner will be demanding with a grasshopper club that has never posted a deficit of less than 10 million francs in recent years and which still lacks the prospect of its own stadium. The question will therefore be what Fosun’s successors want to do differently in order to make the investment profitable. Americans aren’t known for burning a few million and then leaving. You have a plan. At least on paper.
The plan is that the LAFC wants to build a global network with collaborations, joint ventures and takeovers. In April, LAFC bought Wacker Innsbruck. It was said that the aim was to lead the ten-time Austrian champions out of the economic and sporting chaos back into the Bundesliga. Harald Gärtner was the intermediary in the takeover of Wacker.
The connection to FC Bayern Munich
More important for GC than Wacker Innsbruck is the LAFC joint venture with FC Bayern Munich, which was founded last March. It’s called Red & Gold and the managing director is Jochen Sauer, the head of the Bayern youth department. Oliver Kahn, Bayern’s sports director when it was founded, was quoted as saying: “FC Bayern will expand its youth development with Los Angeles FC. We see the partnership with LAFC as an opportunity to strengthen FC Bayern in sporting competition with the best clubs in Europe and the Bundesliga.”
Founding of the Red & Gold joint venture.
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Meanwhile, Red & Gold is working with the Gambinos Stars in West Africa; in Uruguay, the joint venture owns the first division club Racing de Montevideo as a branch in the South American market. And now GC will also become part of Red & Gold, at least indirectly. Legally, GC has nothing to do with Red & Gold or even with the mighty Bavarians; Bavaria does not own any GC shares.
Nevertheless, GC could also benefit from Bayern Munich and its academy through the new owner and its joint venture Red & Gold in scouting, exchanging know-how or with loan deals. For example, when Bayern is looking for a first division club to develop a talent. Apparently no one from Bayern advised LAFC against GC.
GC Zurich becomes part of the global vision @LAFC 🤝
ℹ️ Grasshopper Club Zurich today entered into a long-term strategic partnership with Los Angeles Football Club.#gc #zürich #traditionsclub
— Grasshopper Club Zurich (@gc_zuerich) January 17, 2024
Perhaps the memories of the last master goalie on Säbener Strasse have not yet completely faded – Yann Sommer, who has a GC past. This also applies even more to coach Ottmar Hitzfeld. Alain Sutter and Ciriaco Sforza also left their mark in Munich as former GC players, and the Brazilian Giovane Elber, a Bayern legend, also made his first steps in Europe at GC. These are not bad associations from Bayern’s perspective.
Big challenges await the Americans
At Bayern, the Red & Gold joint venture is seen as an attempt to develop a business model that follows the trend of multiple club ownership. Multi Club Ownership (MCO), as practiced by football investors such as 777 Partners, the City Football Group, Ineos, Red Bull and many others, has the disadvantage that the European football association Uefa legally or personnel are intertwined, prohibits participation in its competitions. For the City Football Group, as the owner of Manchester City and co-owner of Girona, this could become a problem if Girona, currently in the top flight of the Primera División, qualifies for the European Cup at the end of the season.
GC and Wolverhampton Wanderers also belonged to the same owner, Fosun, but it was unlikely that the two clubs would meet in the European Cup. With LAFC as owner, UEFA’s hurdle for GC has also theoretically been removed. “Sooner or later we want to be represented at the highest level in the European Cup,” said Freeman. It remains to be seen what has become of the big plans in two or three years. In any case, there doesn’t seem to be a lack of optimism.
For the new GC owners, it’s all about practice in the future. It offers tangible challenges: the loss of spectators, the blocked stadium project, the loss-making operation and the lean sporting diet are the key words. At least the survival of the record champions seems to be assured with the new owner. There is also the prospect of being able to benefit from the Red & Gold network. That’s good news for the Grasshoppers for now.