Trading requires much expertise and experience to gain high profits out of it. These days, even the younger generation are getting into the various forms of trading with a wide variety of courses, books and seminars mushrooming online relating to this matter.
While stock trading might be the first thing that comes to mind, similarly football clubs can also be viewed with the same lens, where you can take much inspiration from successful club owners who turn huge profits with those in the English Premier League being very good examples of such trades.
Let Main Stand share with you these incredible turnarounds that will blow your mind.
1. Ken Bates: Bought Chelsea for £1 and sold it for £140 million
The one before Roman Abramovich. In 1982, Chelsea had been taken over by English businessman Ken Bates with the price of only one pound but took on the club’s enormous debt that nearly led to its bankruptcy. Bates’ arrival saved the club crisis but the team’s results on the field were only mediocre at best.
With another shareholder in Matthew Harding, Bates had planned to expand their business beyond the football league's. One of them is the ‘Chelsea Villa’ project, a high-end resort and entertainment complex which required them to invest a considerable amount of money for the land and construction.
But this came at a period when the football side of things saw big money recruitments like Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Jesper Grønkjær and Frank Lampard, all of which combined together to push the club towards yet another financial crisis.
Bates’ hands were forced by the financial circumstances and eventually sold Chelsea to Russian billionaire Abramovich for £140 million and also made the oligarch take on a further £80 million worth of club debt. At that time, this sale broke the record for the sale of a football club and kickstarted a new era of football ownership.
2. Taksin Shinawatra: Bought Manchester City for £23 million and sold it for £140 million
Thailand’s ex-Prime Minister Taksin Shinawatra made quite the entrance into the Premier League when he bought Manchester City 15 years ago. Back then, this team kept alternating between the top and second-tier leagues. He paid £23 million for the club and went on to put significant investments into the playing staff, playing a massive role in moving the club to the top.
Initially, Shinawatra had established a UK company by the name UK Sports Investment Limited and started buying club shares from 2007 onwards before eventually attaining 75% of the claims that enabled him to completely take over the club as their new owner. In came famous big names in world football then like Sven Goran Eriksson, Martin Petrov, Rolando Bianchi, and Elano, just to name a few.
But while the team was moving forward, Taksin had to fight his battles back in Thailand, forcing him to seek new owners for the club. Coincidently, UAE-based private equity company Abu Dhabi United Group Investment and Development led by Sheikh Mansour of the Abu Dhabi royal family was looking to step into English football.
Due to the controversies happening in Thailand, Taksin unwillingly sold the team to Sheikh Mansour, revealing later that he did not want to sell but had little choice in that regard. The takeover earned him approximately £140 million after only a year in charge, five times higher than the price he bought them for.
3. Mike Ashley: Bought Newcastle for £134 million and sold it for £300 million
In 2007, Ashley was the president of a leading sports store in the UK called Sports Direct with a net worth of two billion pounds. While holidaying in Barbados, he was notified of the financial troubles at Newcastle and took the big decision to swoop in to buy the northeast of England club for £134 million.
At first, Newcastle fans seemed happy that a new philanthropist took over the team primarily as Ashley promised them that he’ll make the team into one of the best in England within seven years. But as we now know, that was far from reality with Ashley hardly making significant investments into the club and accrued further acrimony when he changed the stadium name to Sports Direct Stadium.
During his reign, the team were relegated from the Premier League twice, leaving the fans very unimpressed and he very quickly became a hate figure among the fans. Yet Ashley couldn’t care less and would often prickly hit back at the fans during the interviews. To say that the relationship between the owner and fans of Newcastle was sour, would be an understatement.
The fans’ suffering finally ended last year when the Saudi Arabian royal family’s consortium together with British business executive Amanda Staveley, made him a huge offer and Ashley finally relented to the tune of £300 million, more than double his initial investment to get the club.
4. Randy Lerner: Bought Aston Villa for £50 million and sold it for £76 million
American businessman Randy Lerner and owner of the NFL team Cleveland Browns followed a path well-trodden back in 2005 by his countrymen in the Glazers making huge profits after they took over at Manchester United and immediately sought to find his own.
This inspired Lerner to buy over 90% of Aston Villa’s share for a total of £50 million in 2006. Though he did explain after the purchase that he chose the club because of his affection for them due to his time there studying and had been a Villa fan ever since.
However, it was not as easy as he thought. Villa spent a lot of money on buying players like Stewart Downing, Ashley Young, James Miller, and John Carew but only enjoyed brief periods at the top of the league and were unable to make the Champions League. Worse was to come when the club was relegated in 2016, the first time ever in their long history, leading Lerner to reconsider his investment.
Add to the fact the issues pertaining to licensing, which limits his earnings, Lerner eventually sold the club to a Chinese businessman Tony Xia for approximately £76 million. Not a huge sum in the context of this list but still a handsome £26 million increase from his purchase, a decade prior.
5. Bill Kenwright: Bought Everton for £32 million and sold it for £175 million
As owners go, Bill Kenwright can definitely be considered one that is well-liked by the supporters of the club, this being Everton, ever since he took over one of the oldest clubs in England back in 1999.
In Kenwright’s era, Everton were the team the neutrals wanted to see do well especially during the period when David Moyes was the manager. Players like Tim Cahill, Marouane Fellaini and Mikel Arteta played a huge part in helping The Toffees qualify for the elusive Champions League.
But Moyes’ departure to Manchester United left a gaping hole with subsequent managers struggling to maintain the high consistency shown in the preceding seasons. The disappointing performances year on year eventually not only led to the team’s decline but had an impact on the finances, with the club not being profitable since 2010.
With the other clubs in the Premier League having huge injections with new owners, Kenwright realized he was fighting a losing battle and in 2016, sold his club to Farhad Moshiri for approximately £175 million. The British-Iranian who has a net worth of £1.4 billion has already invested north of £500 million since taking over.
6. Tom Hicks and George Gillett: Bought Liverpool for £215 million and sold it for £300 million
For a long time, Liverpool was a local club with local ownership under the stewardship of the Moores family who enjoyed great success between 1950 to 2005 including 13 league titles, six FA Cups, seven League Cups and five European Cup/Champions League.
Somehow two American businessmen in Tom Hicks and David Gillett were able to convince the Moores family to sell to them in 2007 for £215 million. But trouble would brew right from the start for the new owners. Disagreement between them as well as the troubling ‘leveraged takeover’ meant that Liverpool soon went into a £350 million debt.
Royal Bank of Scotland who is the creditor, took the duo to court and won the decision to sell the club with Fenway Sports Group led by John W. Henry came in to buy at £300 million. The rest, as they say, is history.
Henry would oversee the return of Liverpool to the top of the table, leading them to their historic first ever Premier League title in 2019/20 as well as a Champions League triumph in the 2018/19 season.
7. Roman Abramovich: Bought Chelsea for £440 million and sold it for £2.5 billion
As aforementioned above, the arrival of Abramovich in 2004 shook the English footballing world not only because it was the record amount paid (then) to purchase a football club, but also because he transformed Chelsea into one the best teams in England and Europe.
Spending was never a problem with Chelsea constantly being the biggest spenders in the Premier League which saw the likes of Eden Hazard, Arjen Robben, Petr Cech, Didier Drogba, Michael Essien and N’Golo Kante all arriving at the club to perform in front of their adoring fans at Stamford Bridge.
But his involvement would be curtailed if the U.K. government who sanctioned Russia for invading Ukraine in late 2021. Their investigation found Abramovich to be a close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin and forced the former to put Chelsea up for sale.
An unwilling seller but left with no choice, Abramovich agreed on a deal with American Todd Boehly who stumped up £2.5 billion to obtain Chelsea and called to an end the Abramovich era at The Blues.
Sources:
https://abtc.ng/how-did-john-w-henry-make-his-money-how-much-did-john-henry-pay-for-liverpool/
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/mar/02/bill-kenwright-everton-farhad-moshiri-takeover
https://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2896/premier-league/2010/10/14/1881043/the-definitive-timeline-how-hicks-and-gillett-took-liverpool
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/may/23/todd-boehly-purchase-of-chelsea-set-to-be-completed-this-week-abramovich
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-nfl-owner-who-got-chewed-up-by-english-soccer-1543587247
