Epitaphs have been written for globalisation in the wake of the war in Ukraine, but it is still a force in football, even if there are no longer Russian and Chinese bidders.
If the Chelsea takeover story has told us anything it is
that British football’s move to more contemporary North American ownership
structures, backed by North American money, is the way things are going.
The three finalists in the auction for Chelsea are all
partnerships of plutocrats, as was the Chicago-based bid led by the Ricketts
family and billionaire investor Ken Griffin that pulled out of the race
before last week’s deadline for final bids. Each of these bids includes
advisors and potential directors from the UK but the vast majority of the
partners, and almost all of the money, is from the US and Canada.
Not as British as it
looks
The bid led by former British Airways and British American
Tobacco boss Sir Martin Broughton. It
may appear to be wrapped in the union jack. British business royalty, Broughton
is also a huge Chelsea fan and has experience of running a major football club
during a difficult transition, as he helped Liverpool move from the
troubled ownership of two Americans, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, to the calmer
waters of Fenway Sports Group (FSG).
Broughton is the figurehead of the bid — a very good
figurehead — but most of the money is coming from American billionaires. Chief
among those are David Blitzer and Josh Harris, who already own minority stakes
in Crystal Palace, among other sports investments, but presumably want to
move up market, and Alejandro Santo Domingo, a Colombian-American financier who
owns a significant stake in the world’s largest brewer, AB InBev, and is
married to an heir of the Duke of Wellington.
A big cheque
All three of these bids are strong and none should have much
difficulty in hitting a number somewhere north of £2.5 billion, which The
Athletic has already reported would be the biggest cheque ever
written for a sports team. Who wins, however, will depend on which of them
convinces the British government, the Raine Group (the American bank running
the auction) and current owner Roman Abramovich (the elephant in the room) that
they will be the least controversial and most popular new custodian at Stamford
Bridge (and can fund a much needed redevelopment of the stadium).
The sports syndicate
The concept of the ownership syndicate has crept up on us. If done correctly, they can bring
together a diversified group of individuals, with various backgrounds that can
add experience and expertise.
These structures have been commonplace in private investments
in the US since the 1970s, which means they have been commonplace in US sports
ownership, too. It is how most sports deals are done now in the US — the sums
involved are just so big, syndicates are an inevitable by-product. They can look more user friendly if they
have the names of prominent sports stars such as Serena Williams and Sir Lewis
Hamilton added to them in return for relatively small stakes.
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