The 2024-25 Portuguese football season kicked off on Friday, with defending champions Sporting hosting Rio Ave. Rio Ave recently became 80% owned by Greece’s richest man, Evangelos Marinakis, whose fortune is estimated at $3.6 billion. But this is not the only case, other clubs have gone through similar transactions.
according to Prefix meaning environmentEvangelos Marinakis has bought 80% of Rio Ave's Sociedade Anónima Desportiva (SAD), adding Vila do Conde to his portfolio of teams, which also includes Olympiacos (Greece) and Nottingham Forest (England).
But there are more foreign millionaires investing in Portuguese football clubs. This is the case, for example, in Famalicão. In 2019, the Israeli Quantum Pacific Group acquired an 85% stake in the club, through Quantum Pacific Management Ltd. Idan Ofer is the main owner of Quantum Pacific Group, an industrial conglomerate that controls Quantum Pacific Shipping. With an estimated fortune of $20.3 billion, Idan Ofer is the 96th richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg.
Furthermore, V. Guimarães is 29% owned by foreign millionaires, in this case by Egypt’s richest man, Nassef Sawiris, through his V Sports fund. Sawiris, for example, is one of the owners of English club Aston Villa, and also has a 5% stake in New York-listed Madison Square Garden Sports, and is the owner of the New York Knicks and NHL Rangers in the NBA. He also owns 6% of German sportswear giant Adidas, which has assets valued at $8.8 billion.
