Alexis Ohanian, the husband of tennis icon Serena Williams, has bought an 8 per cent stake in Chelsea Women.
Ohanian, the co-founder of the social media platform Reddit,
will take a shareholding of more than £20million in a deal that values the team
at about £245million — which would make it the most valuable women’s team in
the world. The 42-year-old New Yorker will take a seat on the board of Chelsea
Women and Williams, 43, is also expected to be engaged in the club.
helsea announced a year ago that they were “repositioning”
Chelsea Women so that it was a separate entity from the men’s team, and
appointed the merchant bank BDT & MSD Partners to sound out prospective
investors.
The bank had three rival bids and Chelsea’s owners have
chosen to go with Ohanian’s investment company, Seven Seven Six Capital.
Significantly, he had been the majority shareholder of Angel City, the National
Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) franchise, which last year sold for $250million
(£190million), at the time the most paid for any women’s team.
Under the deal that separated the women’s team from the
men’s last year, Chelsea FC Holdings sold Chelsea Women FC to a sister company,
Blueco 22 Midco Ltd, for £200million. That move enabled Chelsea to avoid
breaching the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules by
declaring it as income, although they were not able to do so for Uefa’s
financial rules, as European football’s governing body does not allow
transactions between sister companies to be treated as income or profit.
The £200million value has still to be approved by the
Premier League as being of fair market value but the investment of more than
£20million by Ohanian for 8 per cent of the shares values the women’s team at
about £245million. Indeed, club projections are that it could be worth between
£500million and £1billion in the next decade, which culminates in the Women’s
World Cup being hosted by the UK in 2035.
By comparison, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund took
over Newcastle United in 2021 for £305million, while the takeover of Everton by
The Friedkin Group in December was worth just under £700million, including
taking over the club’s debts.
Ohanian and the Chelsea owners expect women’s football in
Europe to continue to grow quickly, following in the footsteps of its success
in North America. He is understood to view Chelsea and Barcelona as the biggest
women’s clubs in Europe, with the women’s game on the Continent now set to
attract even greater interest from sports giants such as Nike and Adidas.
It should be noted that after two years of sharp rises, the average attendance in the Women’s Super League dipped this season.
The 2022-23 average was 5,456, a 187 per cent increase on
2021-22; and the 2023-24 figure, 7,371, represented a further 35 per cent
spike. For 2024-25, pending tiny changes from two unconfirmed final-day
attendances, there was a 9 per cent decrease to 6,732.
The primary explanation is simple: no Lionesses bump.
England’s victorious run on home soil at Euro 2022 sent interest in women’s
football soaring, and they sustained the surging popularity by reaching the
2023 World Cup final.
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