Ownership controversies have also surrounded Premier League champions Manchester City (owned by the Abu Dhabi United Group) and French champions Paris Saint-Germain (owned by Qatar Sports Investments).
“PIF could go down a similar route to the UAE in having the City Football Group and going for a multi-club ownership model, where effectively you have a mothership and you have a lot of satellites,” he suggested.
Aside from its flagship club Manchester City, the ADUG’s City Football Group now owns nine other clubs across four continents with consistent branding and availability of resources.
“From a financial point of view, that’s actually turning out to be quite successful because you can have continuity in terms of culture and philosophy at clubs, you can transfer players around to help their development, and then you can start to sell them at higher prices, so it’s actually proven to be, these days, a pretty smart model,” Maguire added.
Alternatively, given the number of high net worth individuals in Saudi Arabia likely to be interested in building on the Newcastle United acquisition, he suggested other high-profile clubs could come into Riyadh’s sights.
