Uefa to strictly enforce multi-club ownership rules in Women’s Champions League

Uefa’s head of women’s football has announced that rules prohibiting clubs with the same owner from competing together in the Women’s Champions League will be strictly enforced, a decision that impacts investors such as Michele Kang.

Kang owns one of Saturday’s Women’s Champions League finalists, Olympique Lyonnais, and London City Lionesses, a club with significant ambitions. Their head coach, Eder Maestre, stated last week the team’s desire to compete for the Women’s Super League title next season.

Although workarounds have been permitted in men’s European competitions, Nadine Kessler confirmed no exceptions would be made in the women’s game, despite the increasing prevalence of multi-club ownership groups.

“There is an evolution of multi-club owners in women’s football and they invest a lot into the game, which is important,” Kessler, Uefa’s women’s football director, said. “But at the same time, when it comes to playing in one football competition, there will be no different approach and no exceptions when it comes to the women’s game, and this is being closely monitored.”

Kang, who also owns the U.S. side Washington Spirit, is not alone in operating multiple strong European clubs. Crux Sports, founded by former New Zealand captain Bex Smith, owns record 14-time Swedish champions Rosengård, Champions League quarter-finalists six times since 2012, and Montpellier, quarter-finalists in 2018 and European semi-finalists in 2006.

Another multi-club group with more than one top-flight European team is Mercury13, which owns Italian Serie A club FC Como Women, Spanish top-flight side FC Badalona Women, and WSL2 club Bristol City.

Kessler said: “Why would we want to preserve the sporting integrity of men’s football, but not of women’s football? It’s out of [the] question. I think in any sport, you want to preserve sporting integrity. That’s the most important thing.”

“We all [try to] think of smart ways of doing this, we all think of smart ways of sharing resources and other things, and I’m sure these owners do a lot too. But in the end, when it comes to what’s happening on the pitch, our job as the competition organisers, of course, is to make sure that everything is 100% fair and that there is not even a perceived breach of integrity.”

Article 5 of Uefa’s Women’s Champions League regulations states that no person can “be involved in any capacity whatsoever” nor have “any power whatsoever” in the “management, administration and/or sporting performance” of more than one club participating. It also prohibits anyone from “being able to exercise by any means a decisive influence in the decision-making” of more than one club, nor being a majority shareholder, nor having the right to appoint or remove people in charge of more than one club.

Kessler spoke before Saturday’s final in Oslo between Lyon, the record eight-time champions, and Barcelona. The former FIFA World Player of the Year said the game was on track to be a sellout “in the motherland of women’s football.”