UEFA to strictly enforce multi-club ownership rules in Women's Champions League

UEFA’s head of women’s football has said rules prohibiting clubs with the same owner from playing together in the Women’s Champions League will be strictly enforced, dealing a blow to investors such as Michele Kang.

Kang owns one of Saturday’s Women’s Champions League finalists, OL Lyonnes, and London City Lionesses, who have big ambitions and whose head coach, Eder Maestre, last week stated their desire to compete for the Women’s Super League title next season.

Workarounds have been found in men’s European competitions but Nadine Kessler said no exceptions would be made in the women’s game, despite the growing number 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 US side Washington Spirit, is not alone in operating multiple strong clubs in Europe. Crux Sports, founded by the former New Zealand captain Bex Smith, owns the record 14-time Swedish champions Rosengård, who have been Champions League quarter-finalists six times since 2012, and 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 the Serie A club FC Como Women, the Spanish top-flight side FC Badalona Women and the 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 state that nobody 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 of, nor having the right to appoint or remove people in charge of more than one club.

Kessler was speaking before Saturday’s final in Olso, between Lyonnes, the record eight-time champions, and Barcelona. The former Fifa world player of the year said the game was in line to be a sellout “in the motherland of women’s football”