- Aluko has a six-figure investment in the Mercury/13 multi-club group
- Ex-Angel City sporting director believes NWSL has been successful at making investment case
Former England international Eni Aluko believes there needs to be “more PR” around the benefits of investing in women’s soccer.
Aluko, who spent most of her career at Chelsea and played 105 times for the Lionesses, now serves as an investor and an adviser for Mercury/13, which has committed to spending US$100 million on women’s soccer clubs across Europe and Latin America.
The group, which was co-founded and is co-led by Victoire Cogevina Reynal and Mario Malavé, has so far invested in Serie A Femminile outfit Como Women, but has ambitions of adding to its portfolio.
There has been significant growth in the valuations of women’s soccer teams in recent years, which has been driven by rising fan interest and more lucrative media rights and sponsorship deals for some of the top domestic leagues.
In the US, National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) franchise Angel City were valued at a league-record figure of US$250 million last year, when a controlling stake in the team was sold to Willow Bay and her husband Bob Iger, who is chief executive of Disney. The team had paid a US$2 million expansion fee to join the league in 2020.
Meanwhile, Chelsea’s women team was valued at nearly UK£200 million (US$266.9 million) when it was spun off by the club’s owners, although that transaction is reportedly yet to be approved by the Premier League.
Speaking on-stage at SportsPro Live at London’s Kia Oval, Aluko, who previously served as Angel City’s sporting director, argued that those involved in women’s soccer in Europe in particular could do more to publicise the ongoing growth and benefits of investing in the women’s game.
“I question whether there is enough PR around the return on investment in women’s football,” Aluko said. “I’ve been around the NWSL in the US, and they’re brilliant at it. They’re very good at saying, ‘we bought at this and we sold with this’. And it’s like, ‘wow, why would you not invest in the NWSL?’
“We can do better with that in terms of European clubs. Obviously it’s a different comparison, because a lot of women’s teams in Europe are coupled with men’s teams, or have a parent men’s team. But there must be a way to show the trajectory if you invest.
“Based on where we’ve come from, I was playing when no one cared, there was no investment. Women’s teams were like a charity element of the clubs, and now we’re here. That’s a a trajectory in itself, and that’s a story that, for investors, it would help to see that this is the exponential growth over the last ten years, and this is going to be the exponential growth over the next ten to 15 years.
“I think we could be a little bit better with that, just to build investor confidence in the women’s game. Because we know in the men’s game, not every club is doing well, but there is still an appetite to invest just because of how big the game is.”
Aluko, who revealed during her session that she has invested a six-figure sum in Mercury/13, also praised the NWSL for doing an “amazing job” in building out its sponsorship portfolio with major brands. She noted the work that Angel City had done to bring in partners like DoorDash and Klarna, which helped encourage other companies to get involved in the league.
Speaking on the same panel, Cogevina Reynal reaffirmed that Mercury/13 is aiming to build a portfolio that consists of a club in each of Europe’s top five leagues, adding that a team’s “commercial potential” is a key part of the organisation’s criteria when assessing different investment opportunities.
“I would say that everything in the market right now in the first division and second division in most leagues in Europe are very high growth potential properties,” Cogevina Reynal said.
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Source: https://www.sportspro.com/news/eni-aluko-mercury-13-womens-football-investment-roi-may-2025/
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