Five Warning Signs for Future of Multi-Club Ownership
Two new studies reveal in great depth the intricacies of how MCOs are taking over the Premier League. The Sports and Crime Briefing tells you everything you need to know.
The idea that footballing success is earned, not engineered, is difficult to shake. But it is being tested by the rise of multi-club ownership (MCOs) in the Premier League, across Europe, and around the world.
Some see it as an evolution of the game, promising that MCOs bring more money to clubs, financial sustainability, and a globalised player development models. Critics deride MCOs for being vehicles for easy financial exploitation and to hide opaque ownership structures.
In 2024, Play the Game found that around 13,000 players worked for 134 MCO groups across 366 clubs, with next to no regulation and little in the way of player protections.
Two recent studies have analsed football’s shifting ownership landscape, albeit in different ways. Jason Stephens, a consultant on MCOs, has gone through every Premier League club, revealing the wide range of ownership stakes involved, and their connections to other clubs and other sports. And from the University of Manchester, researchers Nicholas Lord and Peter Duncan have analysed the full potential for illicit financial activity behind MCOs.
The Sports and Crime Briefing sat down with all three experts to learn more.
While not entirely negative, these reports reveal an industry where secrecy, hidden financial flows, and regulatory blind spots create an environment ripe for abuse. But while some ownership structures fuel financial manipulation, others offer strategic advantages.
And the situation is not going anywhere soon. As astonishing as it may seem, clubs are still seen as undervalued assets. According to Stephens, experts believe that football clubs have only reached around 40% of their commercial potential, considering the global popularity of the sport.
There’s still a long way to go.
Takeaway 1: MCOs Are Not Inherently Bad
Football has always evolved—tactically, commercially, and structurally. In that light, is multi-club ownership simply the latest shift? For Stephens, author of one of the reports, critics often paint MCOs as a threat to football’s integrity, but the reality is more nuanced.
"The press, the fans, the traditional football infrastructure is primed to hate MCOs as a concept. It goes against what football used to be, and that drives a lot of the negativity,” Stephens told the Sport and Crime Briefing.
To his mind, MCOs, when run responsibly, can offer benefits. Some networks focus on player development, strategic partnerships, and financial stability, allowing clubs to share scouting resources, optimize player pathways, and compete more effectively.
Even groups that have faced controversy like the City Football Group, with stakes in 12 football clubs, have brought clear positives, such as global scouting network enhancing player development, he found.
The Red Bull model continuously turns over players, but its clubs have helped an impressive roster of players progress, including Dominik Szoboszlai, Sadio Mané, and Timo Werner.
And the recruitment network of the Pozzo family group, which owns Watford and Udinese, has received high praise.
For Stephens, the issue isn’t MCOs themselves, it’s how they are used and whether regulators can hope to ensure accountability. A lack of oversight and regulation has allowed some MCO structures to become financial black holes, vehicles for asset stripping, or networks for opaque financial flows.
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