Argentine bosses: who are the members of the select group of club owners that Maxi López has joined

The name of the British businessman Paul Richardson doesn’t say much. Nor that of Maxco, one of his companies. But yes, that of his partner, Maxi López, co-owner of the company that in the last few hours has completed the acquisition of Birmingham City, which participates in the Football League Championship, the second division of English football. The former Barcelona and Milan striker, among others, became the first Argentine owner of a British club, but he is not the only compatriot who runs a sports institution in one of the countries that accept the form of a limited company.

The pioneer in these matters is Andrés Fassi, president of Talleres de Córdoba since November 2014 and with a mandate in force until 2025, who ventured into this field almost three decades ago in Mexico at the hands of the now super powerful Grupo Pachuca and who in recent years it has expanded its networks to Chile, Uruguay and Spain.

Fassi first landed in Mexico in the early 90s to work as a physical trainer for Cobras de Ciudad Juárez together with the Argentine coach Carlos lad Rodríguez and then worked in Necaxa with Roberto Marcos Saporiti. There he joined the businessman Jesús Martínez Patiño.

Together they forged in July 1995 the acquisition of Pachuca, a club that at the time played in the second division of Mexican football and had never won a first division title. In 1998 it got the promotion and has since become one of the most successful institutions in that country: it has won six local tournaments, five editions of the Concacaf Champions League and one of the South America Cup.

Not happy with this, Fassi and his partner repeated the story with León: they bought him in 2010, promoted him two years later and won three national titles. Today they own two teams that compete in the same tournament. They also own Coyotes de Tlaxcala, which plays in the Liga de Expansión MX, the main promotion tournament in Mexico.

The Pachuca Group, of which the entrepreneur Cordovan was vice president of sports until last year and of which he is still a shareholder, has extended its investments in the last six years: in June 2016 it acquired 80% of the Everton share package de Chile (in January 2020 he added the remaining 20%), in August 2020 he took over football in Atenas de Uruguay (there is where Sebastián Fassi, one of the four sons of Andrés, saves) and last week he announced the purchase of 51% of the shares of Real Oviedo, of the second Spanish division.

Also in Spain he invested the multifaceted Christian Bragarnik, former footballer of the Prima D teams, representative of the players, coach Sui generis of Argentine clubs, former president of the Mexican Querétaro, director of Xolos de Tijuana and, for just under three years, owner of Elche.

Through the Score Club 2019 SL investment group, Bragarnik acquired 70% of the share package that belonged to local entrepreneur José Sepulcre on 3 December 2019 in exchange for 28 million euros. In August 2020, the Valencian Community club gained promotion after defeating Girona in the play-off final and has remained in the elite of Spanish football ever since.

Other recent experiences in the peninsula have not had a good ending. Antonio Caselli, already a candidate for the presidency of River four times, bought 95% of the Burgoswhich at the time was part of Segunda B. In December, his son Franco, just 24, took over the presidency of the body that added several Argentine players such as Marcelo Barovero and Leonardo Pisculichi.

Although the team was promoted to Second Place in May 2021, a few weeks later Caselli and other directors of the Football Success Case SL company were sued for unfair administration and on July 7 the General Shareholders’ Meeting ousted them. A new company, the company Yucon Business SL (of Spanish owners), took over the control of the Burgos club, which had a debt of six million euros. She only had Caselli 10% of the shares.

In Spain, the former River midfielder also tried his luck William Pereirawhich in October 2019 acquired, together with a group of Argentine and Mexican investors, 97% of the stake in the small Tudelano Sports Society for 850,000 euros. The experiment was extremely unsuccessful and last month the institution passed into the hands of Navarran businessman Ramón Lázaro Martínez, who paid one euro for the shares and will face a debt of 1.3 million. Martínez described the management that brought the club to that situation as “unfortunate”.

One of the most striking investments was made in Greece, with an Argentine protagonist. In August last year, Thanasis Chinopoulos, president of the OF Ierapetraof the Second Division of that country, announced that it had reached an agreement to this effect Rodolfo Baque will become the club’s main shareholder on the island of Crete.

Who is Baque? Representative of a footballer who heads the RAB Sports studio, although in recent months he has gained public visibility for being the lawyer of which Diana Madrid, the nurse who worked at Diego Maradona’s residence when the star died. Since her arrival, several Argentine players have joined the club, such as Lucas Necul (Arsenal) and Faustino Dettler (Board of Trustees).

Since the 20,019 law was enacted in Chile in May 2005, which regulates professional sports clubs, clubs have massively launched into this new form of management, including the three largest clubs in the country: Colo-Colo, University of Chile and Catholic University. That market was a breeding ground for Argentine investors.

The pioneer, shortly after the standard was approved, was Raul Delgadowho worked as a FIFA agent after being a journalist (worked for 18 years in La Nación), press and dissemination secretary during the second presidency of Carlos Menem, member of the board of directors of the Télam agency and campaign manager for Ramón Small stick Ortega for the elections that consecrated him governor of Tucumán in 1991 (defeating the genocidal Antonio Domingo Bussi).

Delgado acquired Union of San Filippo, the club he has led ever since and now plays in the Second Division. In these 17 years the name of the institution of San Felipe de Aconcagua has resonated in Argentina more than anything else they participated in triangulation maneuvers in the sale of footballers to avoid paying taxes. “We carried out operations within the regulatory framework imposed at the time by FIFA. It is a methodology used by several clubs, but the media have attributed it only to those controlled by the Argentines “he said in July 2020 in an interview with the newspaper La Tercera.

When Delgado founded the company with which he took control of Unión San Felipe, his lawyer was Ricardo Pini. With that experience on his resume, Pini acquired the Rangers de Talca, which was going bankrupt and was sold at auction in August 2010. He ran it for four years and sold it to a group of Chilean investors in the July 2014. medium, was investigated in Argentina by the Federal Revenue Administration for triangulation maneuvers similar to those imposed on Delgado.

In September 2015 the lawyer, married to the children’s entertainer Laura Panama Franco and was a partner of Christian Bragarnik, acquired another Chilean club for 1.8 million dollars, Union La Calera. Since then, the team has returned to the First Division, qualified for the first time in an international tournament (the Copa Sudamericana 2019) and finished second in the local league in 2020.

Partner of Pini in the Unión La Calera project (he became president of the club), the entrepreneur of Rosario Christian Le Bihan, made his way and in December 2018 acquired, together with a group of investors, 71.55% of the shares from San Luis de Quillotathe arch-rival of La Calera, with whom he plays in one of the classics of the Chilean Fifth Region.

“I will never ignore my past. I bought Unión La Calera at that time, associated with two friends, but later decided to leave on excellent terms. Now this possibility was born, I put together a group and since I had the experience, I used it to get to San Luis “, explained when asked about when the deal was finalized. Since being managed by Le Bihan (who is also a representative of the players), San Luis has failed to move up and in the current second division tournament they are 13th out of 17 participants.

The last Argentine to join this trend was the audiovisual producer Gonzalo Cileywhich in February of this year and in partnership with a group of investors bought Audax Italiano, one of the eight founding clubs of the Lega Professionisti in 1933, for 7 million dollars, but which has not won a First Division title since 1957.

We design a competitive club, which remains in the cup zone, with ambition: we want to be the fourth largest in Chile. We know that this is not the case with the fans, but we can be at a football level, be a respected club that works and has an identity “.Cilley, 45, who has worked for years in Telefé and has also produced American series such as tell me a story Y broken.