Australian private equity fund Athlon buys French soccer club Canet Roussillon

The boutique private equity fund Athlon CIF is scouring Europe and the UK for more lower league soccer and rugby union clubs.

David Gibson, left, and Ben Carberry’s first equity purchase for their Athlon Club Investment Fund is a French soccer team. Picture By Ryan Osland

At least three European soccer teams could be in Australian private equity hands within months after a boutique Sydney sports-focused investor clinched a deal to buy a lower league French team over the weekend.

Athlon Partners, featuring a group of financing and sports administration experts including ex-Macquarie banker Ben Carberry, paid between $1m and $4m for French fourth division club Canet Roussillon.

The deal is the first in a string of purchases via its Athlon Club Investment Fund, which it is raising $15m from wealthy individuals and families and other investors.

It is part of a strategy of targeting lower league teams that have slipped down the divisions, in the hope that an injection of capital and commercial nous can lift them into higher leagues and increase their value.

Canet Rousillon Football Club is located in Canet-en-Roussillon, a seaside town in the Languedoc-Roussillon region near Perpignan.

Athlon CIF chief executive David Gibson, a former NSW rugby administrator, will become Canet Roussillon president.

Mr Gibson said Athlon’s aim was to quickly improve the team’s off-field coaching infrastructure and the commercial operations to generate more revenue and hopefully move towards the more lucrative top of the French league structure.

“Our aspiration is to promote the club through the leagues with the aim of achieving [the second division] Ligue 2 within three to five years,” Mr Gibson said.

“We look for that niche strategy. This is an area where football is six times more popular than other codes. It is also set in an area of southwest France where it has the potential to be the pre-eminent soccer team in the region … tapping into the Catalan identity that they are culturally passionate about.”

Athlon CIF joins a small group of Australian owners of overseas sports teams. Billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes is a minority owner of NBA club Utah Jazz, while fund manager Anton Tagliaferro is chairman of Maltese club Balzan FC. Mario Biasin of Metricon Homes owns Italian club Triestina and Axis Services plumbing business owner Clem Morfuni recently took control of English fourth tier side Swindon Town.

Canet Rousillon is Athlon CIF’s first deal but it is just one of a number of soccer and rugby union teams the fund has identified for potential investment across Europe, with the impact of Covid ensuring there is no shortage of clubs in need of fresh capital to survive and restore on-field fortunes.

Athlon’s founders say they can make better returns in percentage terms buying cheap lower league teams and building them up to second division standard and then selling than purchasing more expensive top-tier clubs.

Mr Gibson said CIF was close to buying two more clubs, one in continental Europe and another in the English lower leagues.

“It is a club that has reached the pinnacle of football in the UK, but with a combination of a lack of capital and some poor ownership structures they have found their way down into the lower leagues,” he said.

“With sufficient capital injection and the right people to steer the ship, there are dozens of clubs across Europe just like Canet Rousillon that have the potential to reach the top once more and we’re continually on the lookout for these opportunities.”

Mr Carberry founded Athlon Partners, a corporate advisory firm specialising in sport, last year, and has also struck deals to buy sports assets such as the Spartan cricket bat and equipment maker.

Mr Gibson and Mr Carberry are working with ex-cricketer Shane Lee and digital agency founder Craig Hodges in Australia and sports agent Greg Keenan, former Roland Garros boss Gilbert Ysern and ex-international soccer player Gerald Passi in France. Todd Greenberg, former CEO of the NRL, is on their advisory board.