adminPARIS. — Asian tycoons, Russian oligarchs, Arab sheikhs, American businessmen — 10 years after Roman Abramovich’s takeover of Chelsea, European soccer clubs remain targets for wealthy foreign investors, and rarely for their love of the shirt.
From Chelsea to the recent buyout of Italian giants Inter Milan by Indonesian media mogul Erick Thohir, a long list of clubs on the continent have changed hands over the last decade.
The trend is most striking in England’s Premier League, where the environment is more welcoming to potential investors, with many clubs listed on the stock exchange.
In total, 11 of the 20 clubs in England’s cash-rich top flight are in foreign hands.
But investors have also turned their attentions to other European leagues, notably France, where clubs are not weighed down by massive debts as is often the case in Spain and Italy and are not protected in the same way as in Germany, where the law prevents any private investor from owning more than 49 percent of a club’s shares.
As a result, Paris Saint-Germain were bought out by Qatar Sports Investments in 2011 and Russian billionaire Dimitry Rybolovlev took control of Monaco in December of the same year before going on to dramatically revive the fortunes of the principality club.
“The influx of money has an immediate impact on the market. The first thing these new owners do is pay huge sums for the best players. That causes inflation and sometimes a sporting imbalance with clubs who can no longer keep up,” says Didier Primault, co-director of the Centre for the Law and Economics of Sport (CDES) in Limoges, France.
The CDES have produced a report for the European Union as part of their efforts to regulate the football transfer system.
In their report, the CDES have noted that the greatest inflation occurred following Abramovich’s arrival at Chelsea in 2003, after Manchester City were bought by the Abu Dhabi United Group in 2008. — AFP.
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