Modern-day capitalism is sometimes called corporatism, because of the large conglomerates that include a number of businesses. Costa Coffee, for instance, was once owned by Whitbread but now comes under the Coca-Cola empire, which has over five hundred brands, including Fanta and Innocent Drinks. You may not have heard of Associated British Foods, but they own Primark, Ovaltine and Twinings, among many others.
Perhaps it will not come as a big surprise that parts of professional sport are evolving in a similar direction, with multi-club ownership becoming fairly common (it’s sometimes just partial ownership). For instance, the Fenway Sports Group is an American company that owns Liverpool FC, the Boston Red Sox (baseball) and the Pittsburgh Penguins (ice hockey). They also own a stock car racing team and a golf league. They claim to have a ‘track record of taking cherished and iconic clubs to new heights.’ John Henry has 40 percent of the company’s total stock, and other large companies and wealthy individuals are partners too.
More commonly, though, it is just football that is involved. Manchester City is the flagship club in the City Football Group, which is mostly owned by Sheikh Mansour and his Abu Dhabi United Group. Among others falling under its umbrella are Girona in Spain, Palermo in Italy, New York City FC and Shenzhen Penguin City in China. Supposedly there is much co-operation among the clubs, in areas such as combined scouting and player sharing.
There are a number of other examples, and it’s not just top clubs that are involved in such ventures. Walsall FC (in League Two) have been acquired by the Trivela Group in the US, which also owns Drogheda United in Ireland and Trivela FC in Togo. They wanted to buy Silkeborg in Denmark, but supporters there objected.
There are various regulations concerning multi-club ownership. In England no-one is allowed to exercise control over more than one league club, and similar restrictions apply at European level, with clubs controlled by the same owners or directors being prohibited from competing in the same European competition. Back in 2017, for instance, UEFA investigated whether two clubs in the Red Bull group (Leipzig and Salzburg) could play in the same competition; it was determined that they could. There have also been more recent examples, such as AC Milan and Toulouse in 2023. Other issues can arise too, such as artificially inflating a player’s transfer value.
No doubt owners and their lawyers will put every effort into keeping within the regulations, just as all capitalist companies do in their quest for profit.
Paul Bennett
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The accompanying picture is not from this month's Standard. I nabbed the image from the 1982-83 Panini sticker album.
Why? . . . Why not?
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