The US owners of Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool are all exploring options to become multi-club networks, according to reports.
They are believed to want to emulate the model developed by Sheikh Mansour’s City Football Group.
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City Football Group has a network of 11 football clubs around the world
Alongside Manchester City, there are ten other football clubs in their network across the world with Palermo the latest addition in July.
The Guardian reports that Arsenal’s Stan Kroenke and Liverpool’s John W. Henry have joined new Chelsea owner Todd Boehly to explore adding clubs “inside and outside Europe”.
Kroenke already owns an MLS team, Colorado Rapids, while he also owns the NFL team Los Angeles Rams and the NHL team Colorado Avalanche.
They have already explored options in Brazil, Belgium and Portugal.
Fenway Sports Group, the company that owns Liverpool, also has baseball team Boston Red Sox and NHL team Pittsburgh Penguins, and wants to add to that stable.
Fenway sold a stake in RedBird Capital last year, the company that acquired AC Milan in August and owns 85% of Toulouse’s capital.
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Kroenke’s LA Rams won the Super Bowl earlier this year
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Liverpool have also explored the possibility of owning multiple clubs
Boehly, who completed the takeover of Chelsea this summer, has made no secret of his desire to build a network of clubs.
“We will continually add resources,” Boehly told the Salt conference earlier this month. “We talked about having a multi-club model. I would like to continue to develop the imprint. There are different countries where there are advantages to having a club.
“Red Bull are doing a really good job at Leipzig and Salzburg, who both play in the Champions League, so they figured out how to make it work. You have Man City who have a really big network of clubs.
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Boehly wasted no time scoring Chelsea
He added: “I think the challenge that Chelsea have now, or one of them, is that when you have 18, 19, 20 year old superstars you can loan them out to other clubs but you put their development in someone else’s hands.
“I think our goal is to make sure we can show pathways for our young superstars to get onto the Chelsea pitch while giving them real playing time. For me, the way to do that is to go through another club somewhere in a really competitive league in Europe.
Boehly has already been turned down by Brazilian club Santos and they are looking for opportunities in the Belgian and Portuguese leagues.
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