Football Fans Trap US Owner in Restroom as Belgian Buyout Sours

(Bloomberg) — A group of disgruntled fans trapped a Belgian football club’s American owner in a restroom after blaming him for their team’s fall from grace.

Paul Conway, co-founder of investment firm Pacific Media Group, said he was targeted by a “planned action with about 15 ultras trespassing in the VIP section” at KV Oostende’s game last weekend against high-flying SV Zulte Waregem.

Based in a seaside and port town on the Belgian coast, KV Oostende is currently struggling at the bottom of the second division. Since Conway took over in 2020 via Pacific Media Group, it’s plummeted from the higher reaches of the Belgian Pro League — the country’s top tier — after selling off many of its best players.

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Conway “should be afraid because of what he is doing to the club,” said Koen Devisscher, a season-ticket holder of 30 years standing who organized a protest against the board before the game. “He’s killing the club and now it’s time for action,” he said. 

It’s not the first time angry fans have cornered their US owners. When the Glazer family first bought Manchester United in 2007, hundreds of fans blockaded their new owners in Old Trafford resulting in a five-hour standoff. Protests against the Glazers have been a regular occurrence to this day.

Conway is one of the early advocates of a multiclub structure in football ownership, which has grown in popularity as a way of sharing resources across teams — such as combining costs for services such as data science — in a bid to compete with the larger clubs. It’s also supposed to spread the risks that come from relegation or missing out on lucrative places in European competitions. Conway’s clubs rely on data rather than scouts to buy players, and play a high-tempo game with younger, less expensive players.

Conway said that “after a number of confrontations,” he was able to safely reach the security booth with the excellent assistance” of local police “where I enjoyed the rest of the match and the victory against Zulte Waregem.” Devisscher said that “the guys” in the restroom incident “were just trying to get information from him.”

A spokesperson for KV Oostende declined to comment. 

Developing a stable of football clubs was initially a strategy employed by smaller investors, but big groups such as Abu Dhabi-baked City Football Group and Red Bull, which own clubs including Manchester City and RB Leipzig, have followed suit. Recent entrants include American investors such as Bill Foley, owner of Vegas Golden Knights, and Chelsea FC co-owner Todd Boehly.

Like all sports teams, when times are good fans heap praise upon their owners. Sanctioned oligarch Roman Abramovich was hailed as a generous benefactor of Chelsea FC while they picked up trophies. But the increasing trend of multiclub owners ups the risk of a run of poor performance, and investors falling foul of passionate fans. 

“Multi-club ownership is a tough balancing act because it aims to make use of efficiencies created by things like cost reallocation across jurisdictions with different financial rules or tax levels,” said Christina Philippou, from the University of Portsmouth. “This inevitably means that there are times when fans may view this reallocation to benefit others being at the cost of their club.

Conway owns stakes — either personally or through Pacific Media — in a number of European football teams, including Barnsley FC, France’s AS Nancy, Switzerland’s FC Thun, and Denmark’s Esbjerg fB.

The performance has been mixed. Barnsley, a team in England’s third tier, was found to be in breach of local football regulations. A statement from the English Football League last year said the two former directors of the club — including Conway — had failed to provide the league with correct information regarding their shareholding in the club. The EFL charge is being appealed. Elsewhere, Nancy was provisionally relegated to the French fifth tier at the end of last season.

There have been successes within Conway’s portfolio. FC Thun is second in the Swiss Challenge League and Polish team GKS Tychy, where Conway is vice-chairman, is performing well, currently standing equal top in its league. One of Conway and investment partner Chien Lee’s earlier investments, the French team OGC Nice, earned them millions when they sold it to billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, who has now agreed to buy about 30% of Manchester United. 

Managing a football team is more than just the excitement on the pitch. Clubs in Europe are often loss making, and have to manage a web of both local interests and foreign transfer deals. At Oostende, the team has gone from making a €2.7 million profit in 2020 to a loss of just under €5 million in 2022, according to the latest available set of accounts.

Conway, who was recently recalled to the board, is currently trying to recoup transfer funds, while about €8 million of shareholder debt has been restructured and converted into equity, according to a recent note sent out to supporters.

He’s already struck a new sponsorship deal for the club with a local tech firm, and is making progress with a disputed payment from Bologna FC in connection with the sale of one of the club’s former star players, Arthur Theate in 2021, according to a person close to the situation. 

Bologna FC didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Conway argues he is part of the solution, not the problem at Oostende. He blames the financial issues at Oostende principally on a period during which local people ran the club and ran up losses. 

Oostende beat RWD Molenbeek on Wednesday night to reach the semi-finals of the Belgian Cup. “If you hand things fully over to the locals in European football, it usually goes horribly wrong,” Conway said. 

Not that many of the fans see things that way. 

“Most of the people would rather the club goes bankrupt and starts again at a lower level than keep Conway on board,” said Devisscher.

–With assistance from Lyubov Pronina.

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