According to UEFA rules, whoever owns a club cannot control other clubs in Europe. For the coming season, the association must make decisions in this regard. One of them is: Does France’s cup winner fly out of the Europa League?
To put it simply, the current UEFA rules say: two clubs that have the same owner are not allowed to play in the same season in the three European competitions Champions League, Europa League and Conference League. And it is precisely in this regard that the Financial Control Chamber of UEFA will soon decide on important cases, according to information from Sportschau:
AC Milan from Italy is qualified for the group stage of the Champions League, the FC Toulouse as cup winners from France for the Europa League. Both are majority owned by RedBird Capital from the USA.
Brighton & Hove Albion from England plays in the group stage of the Europa League, Royal Union Saint-Gilloise from Belgium is also in the qualifiers – both clubs are majority owned by English poker player Tony Bloom.
If the rules were enforced, UEFA might have to refuse participation to one of the two clubs. But will that happen? Club owner ownership of multiple clubs – called multi-club ownership – is becoming an increasingly common phenomenon in professional football.
Red Bull: UEFA let Leipzig and Salzburg play
In the case of Red Bull, UEFA decided in 2017 that clubs Red Bull Salzburg and RasenBallsport (RB) Leipzig could both take part in UEFA competitions. Both clubs have made “significant changes” in management and structure to comply with regulations, UEFA said in 2017.
The verdict at the time stated: The legal chamber came to the conclusion “that the relationship between Red Bull and FC Salzburg only corresponds to a normal sponsorship relationship” and that “Red Bull does not exert any decisive influence on Salzburg”. The owners of AC Milan, FC Toulouse, Brighton & Hove and Saint-Gilloise would like to read such sentences about themselves.
Red Bull vs. RasenBallsport in Europa League 2018
Club owners try to comply with the rules with changes
The Brighton example makes it clear that Red Bull could serve as a comparison case. While poker billionaire Bloom is the clear majority owner of both Brighton & Hove Albion and Saint-Gilloise, he has less than 50 percent of the voting rights at the Belgian club, as the portal “The Athletic” researched. The majority of the voting rights are held by one business partner. “Decisive influence” – and that’s what the UEFA Chamber of Control is all about – would only have Bloom at Brighton, the rules might already have been met.
Tony Bloom, owner of Brighton & Hove Albion and Royale Union Saint-Gilloise
In Toulouse, several changes were made at short notice in the club management in June. Several representatives of the investment firm RedBird, which owns majority shares in both AC Milan and Toulouse, resigned from the board. Again, the purpose of the drill is obvious, to comply with UEFA’s rules as a minimum.
A third case is the relationship between Aston Villa and England and Vitoria Guimaraes in Portugal. Both clubs have qualified for the Conference League. Group V Sports, majority owners of Aston Villa, also joined Guimaraes in February 2023. On June 29, Aston Villa announced that its owners had returned part of the shares in Guimaraes to the club and are no longer represented in the club’s management. This means independence and compliance with UEFA rules, writes the club from Birmingham.
Fan representative: “This is the biggest threat”
“Multi-club ownership is currently the biggest threat to football,” says Ronan Evain from the Football Supporters Europe fan alliance in an interview with the sports show. “The rules should be tightened, the associations have to send a strong signal.” Evain fears that clubs will take a chance and try to get through with their structures.
“We see that there is a temptation from a number of multiple ownership holders to test the system and UEFA’s ability to enforce its rules,” Evain said, looking at the current examples. “Should they succeed, the gates would open for everyone.” The decisions could therefore be forward-looking for how UEFA interprets its rules.
Ronan Evain von Football Supporters Europe (FSE)
Clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City build networks of clubs
The football market is in flux when it comes to multiple participations. In mid-June 2023, “BlueCo”, the American-led owner consortium of Chelsea FC, took over Racing Strasbourg in France. Strasbourg fans had protested with posters: “Strasbourg is not Chelsea!” But now their club belongs to the same owners who own Chelsea.
Reports of such takeovers or at least the purchase of holdings are now part of everyday life. The Premier League owners of AFC Bournemouth bought into French Premier League club Lorient FC in January 2023. The owners of Southampton FC took over the Turkish second division club Göztepe. And only on Monday (06/26/2023) the group of owners of AS Roma also bought the French third division club AS Cannes. Large networks have emerged in this way in recent years. Three of the most famous:
Die City Football Group from Abu Dhabi, headed by Manchester City, has interests in or owns Lommel SK (Belgium), Girona FC (Spain), ES Troyes (France) and Palermo FC (Italy).
The Red Bull Group exerts influence on a network of clubs in Salzburg and Leipzig, among others.
The US investor 777 Partners holds capital shares in Hertha BSC, but does not have a majority of voting rights due to 50+1. 777 also owns Red Star Paris (France), FC Genoa (Italy), Standard Liège (Belgium) and FC Sevilla (Spain) in whole or in part.
Ceferin brought up the new regulation
The owners invest heavily in the networks, money flows into European club football. “We need to talk about these rules,” UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin said on YouTube channel The Overlap in March 2023. “Because there is more and more interest in owning several clubs at the same time. We shouldn’t just say ‘no’ to such investments.” However, he restricted that a new regulation must be “strict”.
UEFA did not comment on a request from the sports show as to how far the talks had progressed and whether a new regulation could be expected soon.
Expert: “UEFA is sleepwalking into the problem”
British journalist Steve Menary has been researching multi-club ownership for years. “There is no strong regulation. UEFA is sleepwalking into a huge problem,” he says in an interview with the sports show. According to Menary’s research from March, there are at least 256 clubs in multiple holdings worldwide. He sees numerous episodes emerging from the club networks:
Transfers within a network of multiple ownership clubs could be made at prices that reflect investors’ needs – rather than actual market values. “This can help, for example, to save taxes or to comply with financial fair play rules on paper,” says Menary. “Clubs may be relegated to farm teams if they have to give up their best players up the network pyramid,” Menary says. These clubs then supply players or provide training platforms for the big clubs instead of developing themselves. The integrity of the competition is damaged when clubs of the same ownership play in the same competition or even against each other. “Then fans could get the impression that manipulation is possible.” Another possible consequence is an increase in the gap between western and eastern European clubs. “Hardly any of the investors go into Eastern European football. That’s mostly because they can’t buy the stadiums, which are often municipally owned there.” As it is, the money only flows to Western Europe.
Multi-Club Ownership – new issue at Club World Cup
In the long term, the topic could also become one for FIFA. From 2025, the Club World Cup will be played with 32 teams. The Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund owns Newcastle United and several clubs from the Saudi league – they could meet at the World Cup.