Takeover of French football clubs by American funds: saviors or gravediggers?

Virginie Phulpin 07:25, May 19, 2022

In one week, two American investment funds bought two French football clubs.

The Red Star and the SCO of Angers.

The Angevin president announced the sale yesterday.

These private American funds are both the saviors and the gravediggers of football. 

It's been a while since we've eaten local in our football clubs.

Twenty years that foreign investors buy European clubs.

There were the Russian oligarchs, the Gulf countries, the Chinese billionaires.

And more recently, American private funds.

In the short term, they very often save our clubs.

The pandemic is over there.

A season behind closed doors in stadiums leaves its mark.

The president of the SCO of Angers evokes 37 million euros of missing revenue.

The Mediapro fiasco didn't help either.

And today there are clubs that are suffering from serious financial difficulties.

Selling them to these American funds means preventing them from sinking by injecting money immediately.

You think that investors are taking advantage of the windfall.

Not out of greatness of soul, but out of opportunism.

Why not anyway.

For these American investors, European football is attractive.

The sports market in the United States is saturated, so they are looking elsewhere to complete their sports strategy.

Look at RedBird Capital Partners, which bought Toulouse Football Club 2 years ago.

He is a heavyweight in American sport.

He has stakes in baseball clubs, American football, or in the Ryder Cup of golf.

And to continue to expand, it turned to Europe and chose Téfécé.

With success.

Not sure that the club would have been Ligue 2 champions this season without this owner who bet on the potential of the city of Toulouse, the team's supporters, and whose primary objective was to move up into the elite.

So it can be very effective.

For these American investors, European football is attractive.

The sports market in the United States is saturated, so they are looking elsewhere to complete their sports strategy.

Look at RedBird Capital Partners, which bought Toulouse Football Club 2 years ago.

He is a heavyweight in American sport.

He has stakes in baseball clubs, American football, or in the Ryder Cup of golf.

And to continue to expand, it turned to Europe and chose Téfécé.

With success.

Not sure that the club would have been Ligue 2 champions this season without this owner who bet on the potential of the city of Toulouse, the team's supporters, and whose primary objective was to move up into the elite.

So it can be very effective.

For these American investors, European football is attractive.

The sports market in the United States is saturated, so they are looking elsewhere to complete their sports strategy.

Look at RedBird Capital Partners, which bought Toulouse Football Club 2 years ago.

He is a heavyweight in American sport.

He has stakes in baseball clubs, American football, or in the Ryder Cup of golf.

And to continue to expand, it turned to Europe and chose Téfécé.

With success.

Not sure that the club would have been Ligue 2 champions this season without this owner who bet on the potential of the city of Toulouse, the team's supporters, and whose primary objective was to move up into the elite.

So it can be very effective.

The sports market in the United States is saturated, so they are looking elsewhere to complete their sports strategy.

Look at RedBird Capital Partners, which bought Toulouse Football Club 2 years ago.

He is a heavyweight in American sport.

He has stakes in baseball clubs, American football, or in the Ryder Cup of golf.

And to continue to expand, it turned to Europe and chose Téfécé.

With success.

Not sure that the club would have been Ligue 2 champions this season without this owner who bet on the potential of the city of Toulouse, the team's supporters, and whose primary objective was to move up into the elite.

So it can be very effective.

The sports market in the United States is saturated, so they are looking elsewhere to complete their sports strategy.

Look at RedBird Capital Partners, which bought Toulouse Football Club 2 years ago.

He is a heavyweight in American sport.

He has stakes in baseball clubs, American football, or in the Ryder Cup of golf.

And to continue to expand, it turned to Europe and chose Téfécé.

With success.

Not sure that the club would have been Ligue 2 champions this season without this owner who bet on the potential of the city of Toulouse, the team's supporters, and whose primary objective was to move up into the elite.

So it can be very effective.

Look at RedBird Capital Partners, which bought Toulouse Football Club 2 years ago.

He is a heavyweight in American sport.

He has stakes in baseball clubs, American football, or in the Ryder Cup of golf.

And to continue to expand, it turned to Europe and chose Téfécé.

With success.

Not sure that the club would have been Ligue 2 champions this season without this owner who bet on the potential of the city of Toulouse, the team's supporters, and whose primary objective was to move up into the elite.

So it can be very effective.

Look at RedBird Capital Partners, which bought Toulouse Football Club 2 years ago.

He is a heavyweight in American sport.

He has stakes in baseball clubs, American football, or in the Ryder Cup of golf.

And to continue to expand, it turned to Europe and chose Téfécé.

With success.

Not sure that the club would have been Ligue 2 champions this season without this owner who bet on the potential of the city of Toulouse, the team's supporters, and whose primary objective was to move up into the elite.

So it can be very effective.

he turned to Europe and chose Téfécé.

With success.

Not sure that the club would have been Ligue 2 champions this season without this owner who bet on the potential of the city of Toulouse, the team's supporters, and whose primary objective was to move up into the elite.

So it can be very effective.

he turned to Europe and chose Téfécé.

With success.

Not sure that the club would have been Ligue 2 champions this season without this owner who bet on the potential of the city of Toulouse, the team's supporters, and whose primary objective was to move up into the elite.

So it can be very effective. 

The problem is that these investment funds do not necessarily know much about football.

What they want is a quick return on investment.

Except it doesn't work that way.

We have just spoken of a success, in Toulouse.

But we must not look far for the opposite example.

The Girondins of Bordeaux.

Barring a miracle, they will be in Ligue 2 in 2 days.

When the King Street investment fund took over the club in 2018, it can almost make you smile today, but the announced objective was to compete with PSG.

A shaky strategy, mistakes at all levels, but especially sporting lack of knowledge, and King Street ended up leaving for the open country a year ago, leaving the club to wander.

The American dream can very quickly turn into a nightmare.

Football is not an investment like any other.

In a club, there is a local environment,

a club culture specific to each one, relations with supporters which are also very important.

And that is not necessarily diluted in a global economic and sporting strategy.

Vocabulary often says a lot.

In the NBA, for teams, we talk about franchises.

In European football, we will continue to talk about clubs instead.