Football Stars Transitioning to Ownership: Messi, Ronaldo, Mbappé and More
Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappé, Luka Modrić, Vinícius Júnior, Thibaut Courtois. For two decades they’ve defined what happens on the pitch. Now they’re quietly trying to shape what happens off it.
This isn’t about vanity projects or testimonial foundations. It’s about ownership, equity, and control – from the fifth tier of Spain to promotion-chasing clubs in France, Portugal, Belgium and beyond.
Messi goes home – via the fifth tier
In April, UE Cornellà – a modest club in Spain’s fifth tier – dropped a bombshell: Lionel Messi had completed a 100 percent takeover.
Cornellà sit in the south-west of Barcelona, a short drive from the city where Messi ruled for 17 years. The club framed the deal as more than a business move, calling it a reinforcement of “Messi’s close ties to Barcelona and his commitment to the development of sport and local talent in Catalonia.”
Messi didn’t just sign papers and disappear. He appeared via video to address players and staff, formally introducing himself as owner and backing their promotion push. They ultimately fell short in the play-offs, but the impact was instant in other ways.
Cornellà’s Instagram numbers exploded into the hundreds of thousands. The club’s name, once known mainly to Spanish football obsessives, suddenly sat in global feeds. Underneath the noise, there is substance: a respected academy structure already in place, and a clear plan for Messi to keep driving investment into Catalan talent.
The pathway is proven. Jordi Alba came through Cornellà before returning to Barça. So did current Barcelona player Gerard Martín and Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya. This is also the club that stunned Atlético Madrid in the 2021 Copa del Rey. Messi is not building from scratch; he’s attaching his name to a club with history and a track record of producing players.
Cornellà is his first European club, but not his only stake. In Uruguay, he and Inter Miami strike partner Luis Suárez have created Deportivo LSM, a new professional side in the country’s fourth tier. The message is clear: Messi is building from the bottom up.
Ronaldo’s answer: why manage when you can own?
Cristiano Ronaldo has never hidden his ambition. Even his post-playing plans sound like a challenge.
“If I can be a club owner, why would I be a manager, sporting director or CEO?” he said after turning 40, outlining a desire to own “several” clubs. The first step came in February, when his CR7 Sports Investments company acquired a 25 percent stake in UD Almería, a Spanish Segunda side with serious aspirations.
“It has been a long-held ambition of mine to contribute to football, beyond the pitch,” Ronaldo said as the deal was announced. He called Almería “a Spanish club with strong foundations and clear potential for growth.”
Almería’s majority control remains with a Saudi Arabian investment group led by Mohammed Al-Khereiji, who did not hold back on the scale of the coup. Ronaldo, he said, is “regarded as the greatest to ever play the game,” a man who knows Spanish football intimately after nine years at Real Madrid, where he became the club’s all-time leading scorer and lifted two La Liga titles and four Champions Leagues.
The club he’s bought into has pedigree and pain. Almería last played in La Liga in 2024 and came agonisingly close to returning this June, losing 2-1 on aggregate to Málaga in the play-off final. The response was aggressive: a new head coach in García Pimienta, a coach steeped in Barcelona’s La Masia for two decades, and seven new signings to push for automatic promotion in 2026-27.
Ronaldo then found himself in a surreal situation in early August. In Lisbon, Almería faced Al-Nassr – the team he still plays for – in a pre-season friendly. The Portugal captain, briefly stepping away from his post-World Cup break, watched from the stands as his club beat his employer 2-0. A split screen in real time: one Ronaldo in boots, another in the boardroom.
Vinícius Júnior and the rebirth of Alverca
Vinícius Júnior chose a different route. No emotional homecoming, no romantic lower-league project in Brazil. Instead, the Real Madrid winger joined a group of investors to buy into Alverca in February 2025, taking between 70 and 80 percent of the club’s shares for a reported €10 million.
The timing could hardly have been better. Three months later, Alverca secured a second straight promotion, returning to Portugal’s top flight for the first time since 1998.
This is a club that had to start again. Relegated from the Liga Portugal, Alverca folded in 2005, only to be reformed a year later and grind their way back through the regional leagues. When the Vincintin family – who also owned Santa Clara – were forced to sell because league rules forbid dual ownership, Vinícius and his partners moved.
He has not become a hands-on president. Far from it. His agent, Thassilo Soares, is now the majority shareholder. “Our relationship with Vinícius is remote,” sporting director Fernando Malta told Get French Football News, in quotes carried by The Guardian. “We say he is the club’s most famous fan.”
That “fan” did finally visit. Early last season, Vinícius walked into the club’s Compacto Desportivo for the first time when Alverca hosted Benfica. They went on to finish 10th in their first year back in the top division, fuelled by a staggering 35 signings.
Malta is realistic. He does not expect Alverca to suddenly challenge Porto, Sporting CP and Benfica. “We are not a big club in terms of size, so we need to be creative in our scouting and use of data,” he said. Survival is the main objective. Selling players is the second.
Yet the star power is growing. Vinícius’ presence alone makes Alverca more attractive to emerging talent. Eduardo Camavinga, his Real Madrid team-mate, and American rapper Travis Scott have joined the project to help with communication and marketing. For a club that once ceased to exist, this is a radically different kind of spotlight.
Mbappé’s rough lesson at Caen
Kylian Mbappé’s ownership story has been far more turbulent.
In June 2024, his company Interconnected Ventures, via its investment arm Coalition Capital, bought a majority stake in SM Caen. It was a full-circle moment: Mbappé had almost joined Caen as a youngster in 2012 before choosing Monaco.
He reportedly invested €15 million of his own money. Caen’s official statement framed the deal as “a significant step in the club’s strategic development” and a reinforcement of its ambition to remain one of French football’s historic names. At the time, they were in Ligue 2 and pushing for promotion.
The script did not follow the fairy tale. Caen crashed to 18th in 2024-25 and were relegated to the Championnat National, France’s third tier, for the first time in 41 years. Results deteriorated, popular coach Nicolas Seube was sacked, and anger spilled over.
Fans unfurled a banner that cut through any marketing gloss: “SMC is not your toy.” Protests against the Mbappé regime followed, a stark contrast to the polished image around the Real Madrid and France star.
Balancing life as one of the world’s most in-demand players with the day-to-day demands of running a professional club has proved brutally difficult. Yet Mbappé has not walked away. At the end of last year, he made a bold call, appointing former Arsenal and France defender Gaël Clichy as head coach.
Clichy steadied the ship. Caen missed the play-offs in May but look better organised and more confident. This summer, Mbappé also approved the arrival of former Caen and Paris Saint-Germain midfielder Mathieu Bodmer as director of football. L’Équipe reported that the pair did not speak directly before the appointment – an unusual detail that underlines the distance between owner and operations.
Still, the target is clear: get back to Ligue 2. Mbappé’s first ownership venture has already shown that reputation doesn’t guarantee results.
Modrić and Swansea: a quiet revolution in South Wales
Luka Modrić’s move into ownership had a very different feel. No controversy, just disbelief.
Shortly before he brought down the curtain on a 13-year run at Real Madrid last summer, the Croatian midfielder became a minority investor and co-owner at Swansea City. His message to supporters, delivered in a press release, was as surreal as it was simple: “Hi Swansea fans, I’m Luka Modric and I’m excited to be part of the journey. My goal is to support the club’s growth in a positive way and to help to build an exciting future.”
For Swansea’s American ownership group – Andy Coleman, Brett Cravatt and Jason Cohen – Modrić was the marquee name they had been chasing, inspired by the global attention Wrexham attracted under Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. Modrić knew the club from his Tottenham days, having faced them home and away in 2010-11, and, as reported by The Guardian, saw the investment as a chance to learn the business side of football.
He has taken that seriously. Modrić has worked to understand Swansea’s growth strategy and even volunteered to speak directly with transfer targets. For now, he stays in the background at the Swansea.com Stadium, focusing on his late-career spell with AC Milan in Serie A. That will change when he finally retires.
The effect is already obvious. Swansea’s profile has shot up. Snoop Dogg came in as an investor a couple of months after Modrić. Martha Stewart followed in December. “It puts us in a different league in terms of some of the things that we are able to do,” chief executive Tom Gorringe said of the new backers.
The footballing ambition is blunt: get out of the Championship. Swansea have been away from the Premier League for nine years and missed the play-offs by nine points in 2025-26. Having a Ballon d’Or winner on hand for insight as the new season unfolds is a weapon few second-tier clubs can call on.
Courtois and the multi-club blueprint
Thibaut Courtois might be the busiest of them all.
Still one of the world’s elite goalkeepers at 34, the Real Madrid and Belgium No.1 has quietly built a three-club portfolio since the start of the year. Each move looks calculated, each club chosen for growth.
In February, he joined an eye-catching ownership group at Le Mans, a club already backed by sporting heavyweights like Novak Djokovic and Felipe Massa. Courtois invested through NxtPlay Capital, the company he co-founded with Gonzalo Vilar. Le Mans promptly celebrated promotion back to Ligue 1, ending a top-flight exile that stretched back to 2010.
Three months later, Courtois and NxtPlay became co-owners of CD Extremadura. The Spanish side have surged through the divisions with four straight promotions since 2022, landing in the Primera Federación, Spain’s third tier. The trajectory is steep, the ceiling high.
Then came the emotional move. On June 1, KRC Genk announced Courtois’ return as a minority investor. This is where his professional story began, and he jumped at the chance to become Genk’s first external corporate shareholder after their transition to a limited liability company.
“I have pursued excellence all my life. At KRC Genk, I feel that same fire and ambition,” Courtois told the club’s website. “This investment truly feels like coming home. Through this commitment, I want to help the club continue to grow and strengthen its sporting ambitions. From Limburg to the top of Europe.”
NxtPlay now holds a seat on Genk’s board, with Vilar representing the company while Courtois continues to focus on his career in Madrid. Even so, the goalkeeper is actively shaping Genk’s commercial strategy and long-term vision.
The pattern is unmistakable. Le Mans, Extremadura, Genk – three clubs in three different countries, all with room to grow. Courtois and NxtPlay are openly working towards a multi-club model, the kind of network already pioneered by City Football Group, Red Bull and BlueCo.
From Messi’s fifth-tier project in Barcelona’s shadow to Mbappé’s bruising education at Caen, from Ronaldo’s promotion gamble in Almería to Courtois’ carefully plotted network, a new era is taking shape.
The biggest stars are no longer just playing the game. They’re buying pieces of it – and the real question now is which of them will turn ownership into a legacy to match what they did on the pitch.
