Who owns football clubs

In one lineA club can belong to its members, to a private owner, to an investment fund or to a body linked to a state, and each model comes with its own checks.

Why ownership matters

The owner of a club decides who runs it, sets the budget and covers any losses. Ownership also shapes who has a voice: fans who vote, or shareholders who invest. Because clubs matter to their communities and to the fairness of competitions, leagues, governing bodies and some governments now check who owns what.

Member-owned clubs

In a member-owned club, the club is an association, not a company. Its members, often called socios in Spanish-speaking countries, pay a yearly fee. In return they can vote in elections for the president and the board. There are no shareholders expecting a return on their money.

Spain: clubs and SADs

Spain’s 1990 Sports Law required clubs in professional competitions to become a sociedad anónima deportiva (SAD), a type of public limited company for sport. Clubs that had shown positive net assets in the preceding seasons could keep their form as associations. In football, four did so: FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Athletic Club and Osasuna.

The Sports Law of 2022 (Ley 39/2022) changed this. The preamble says the old model had not ended insolvency. Professional competitions are now open to both clubs and SADs. An SAD’s board must include at least one independent member, chosen for their personal and professional standing and free of ties to the company, its major shareholders or its managers. That member must pay particular attention to the interests of season-ticket holders and fans.

Germany’s 50+1 rule

Many German clubs run their professional teams through companies, which can take outside investment. The 50+1 rule, part of the statutes of the German Football League (DFL), limits how far that can go. (In August 2026 the league association started using the name Bundesliga e.V.) A club can take part in the Bundesliga or 2. Bundesliga only if it is a members’ association, or if a members’ association holds the majority of votes in the company that runs the team: 50% of the voting rights plus at least one more vote.

The rule has had an exception, the Förderausnahme. The DFL could grant it when an investor had supported the club’s football for more than 20 years.

Germany’s competition authority, the Bundeskartellamt, reviewed the rule at the DFL’s own request. It closed the case on 12 August 2026. It found no fundamental objection to 50+1: the aims of keeping clubs rooted in their members and giving members a say can justify the limit on investment. But the rule has to be applied consistently. The authority gave the DFL three pointers:

• Every club in both divisions should offer fans open access to voting membership.
• The rule’s logic should also be respected in the DFL’s own votes.
• The proposed protection for clubs that already hold the exception, which the authority names as Bayer Leverkusen and VfL Wolfsburg, needs improving.

Private owners

Most clubs in England, and many elsewhere, are companies with private owners. An owner might be one wealthy person, a family, a group of investors or a listed company.

Leagues check new owners before a takeover. The Premier League’s check is the Owners’ and Directors’ Test. In March 2023 its clubs agreed to tighten it. The share that counts as “control” fell from 30% to 25%. New reasons for disqualification were added, including government sanctions and human rights abuses, and chief executives were brought within its scope.

England has also created a statutory regulator. The Football Governance Act 2025 set up an Independent Football Regulator for the top five tiers of the men’s game in England, from the Premier League down to the National League. Most of its powers to judge whether owners and officers are suitable came into force on 5 May 2026.

State-linked owners

Some clubs are owned or backed by bodies connected to a national government, such as a sovereign wealth fund, an investment fund owned by a state. These buyers go through the same owners’ tests as anyone else. The questions that attract most attention are who really controls the club, and whether the same owner is linked to other clubs.

Private equity

Private equity firms invest money raised from pension funds and other investors, usually for a set number of years, aiming to sell later at a profit. In football they appear in two ways. Some buy stakes in clubs. Others invest in leagues, for example by buying a share of a company that holds future media income, paying clubs money up front in return.

The key point for readers is the time horizon. A fund usually plans to sell. That is different from a member-owned club, which has no exit.

Multi-club ownership

Multi-club ownership means one owner holding stakes in several clubs, often in different countries. Owners say it lets clubs share scouting, data and coaching. Regulators focus on the risks: two clubs with one owner meeting in the same competition, or moving players between them on terms that are not at arm’s length.

UEFA’s rule

Article 5 of the regulations for UEFA’s club competitions says no person or company may have control or influence over more than one club taking part in UEFA’s club competitions. Control includes holding a majority of voting rights, having the right to appoint most of the board, or being able to exercise a decisive influence in decision-making by any means.

Compliance is assessed on a fixed date, 1 March, before the season, and clubs must keep complying until the season ends. If two clubs break the rule, only one can be admitted. Priority goes to the club that qualified for the more prestigious competition, then to the one that finished higher in its domestic league, then to the one whose national association ranks higher.

The rule has limits. It does not apply between certain pairs of clubs playing in different competitions: for example, a club that enters the Champions League league phase directly and a club playing in the Europa League or the Conference League. A club refused entry may also be admitted to a lower UEFA competition, the Europa League or the Conference League, if the ownership criteria are then fully met.

How it has been applied

In June 2025 UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB), its financial watchdog, ruled on cases involving clubs from Hungary, Slovakia, Ireland and Denmark.

On 11 July 2025 it found that Crystal Palace and Olympique Lyonnais had breached the rule on 1 March 2025. Lyon was admitted to the 2025/26 Europa League and Crystal Palace to the Conference League. Crystal Palace appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the independent court for sports disputes. CAS dismissed the appeal in August 2025, finding that one shareholder held stakes in both clubs and had decisive influence over both as a board member.

The models side by side

Where to go next

• Football’s spending rules explains how much an owner may fund.
• How clubs make money shows what an owner is buying into.
• TV rights, explained covers the income that makes clubs attractive to investors.