Crystal Palace boss delivers verdict on multi-club ownership
BY ANDREW MCSTEEN
Crystal Palace boss Patrick Vieira has praised the role of multi-club ownership in football.
Speaking at the Financial Times’ Business of Football summit in London this week, Vieira reflected on how the system of a single entity [investor) which exerts control or decisive influence over more than one football club around the world, has helped him on his managerial path.
That path started at Manchester City, where, after ending his playing career in 2011, he moved into a training and developing role and then a managerial role, taking charge of their Elite Development Squad in 2013.
Two years later, he moved to American club New York City, part of the ‘City Football Group’ of clubs – which also included Melbourne in Australia – before joining Nice in France in 2018 and then the Eagles in 2021.
“The perfect example was really at City,” said Vieira when asked if the multi-club model provides managers with opportunities to learn their trade around the world.
“Working with Manchester City and then going to New York…you have people from the offices who went from Manchester to New York and from New York to Australia. So there’s this kind of ‘live experience’ that people can have – players can have as well.”
The Eagles are no strangers to investors with multi-club interests themselves.
American investor David Blitzer has interests in teams across Europe and in America, in addition to ice hockey and basketball franchise investments, which he shares along with fellow Palace American investor Josh Harris, who also boasts an interest in American football franchise, the Pittsburgh Steelers.
However, it is the most recent American investor in the SE25 side, John Textor, who has brought the multi-club model to South London with his ‘Eagle Football Holdings Limited’ group having stakes in French team Olympique Lyonnais, Brazilian club Botafogo and Belgian side RWD Molenbeek.
Initially welcomed for his investment in the club’s academy in Beckenham (Textor has described producing young players to the Financial Times as “asset creation” in the past), reports in the national press surfaced earlier this year of disagreements with Palace chairman Steve Parish.
Added to this, fans at Selhurst Park made their feelings known about the model, displaying a banner stating ‘Multi-club ownership stock market gambling. Textor, we don’t trust you’, at the Manchester United home game last month.
And with Uefa, the European governing body of the sport, sounding warnings, including its ‘…potential to pose a material threat to the integrity of European club competitions’, the multi-club model is not being welcomed entirely across the football family.
But, despite this background, Vieira is certain that the model is here to stay.
“This looks like the future of clubs,” he said. “Having multi-clubs around the world and having people who can go from one country or one continent to the other one and who can bring experience. I think that is the way the game is going today.”