Uefa's head of women's football has issued a stern warning that rules prohibiting clubs with the same owner from competing in the Women's Champions League will be strictly enforced, delivering a significant setback to investors such as Michele Kang.
Kang is the owner of OL Lyonnes, who are set to face Barcelona in Saturday's Women's Champions League final, as well as London City Lionesses. The latter's head coach, Eder Maestre, recently expressed the team's ambition to challenge for the Women's Super League title in the upcoming season.
While workarounds have been identified in men's European competitions, Nadine Kessler, Uefa's women's football director, emphasized that no such flexibility would be permitted in the women's game. "There is an evolution of multi-club owners in women's football and they invest a lot into the game, which is important," Kessler stated. "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. This is being closely monitored."
Kang, who also owns the American side Washington Spirit, is not the only investor operating multiple strong clubs across Europe. Crux Sports, founded by former New Zealand captain Bex Smith, owns Rosengård, the 14-time Swedish champions who have reached the Champions League quarter-finals six times since 2012, as well as Montpellier, who were Champions League 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 Serie A club Como Women, Spanish top-flight side Badalona Women, and WSL2 club Bristol City.
Kessler further explained the rationale behind the strict enforcement: "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. In any sport, you want to preserve sporting integrity. That's the most important thing."
She added, "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 when it comes to what's happening on the pitch, our job as the competition organisers, is to make sure everything is 100% fair and there is not even a perceived breach of integrity."
Article 5 of Uefa's Women's Champions League regulations explicitly states that no individual 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 in the competition. 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 of, nor having the right to appoint or remove people in charge of more than one club.
Kessler made these remarks ahead of Saturday's final in Oslo, where Lyonnes, the record eight-time champions, will take on Barcelona. The former FIFA World Player of the Year described the match as a potential sellout "in the motherland of women's football."
