The Transfer Window and the Multi-Club Wave: The Line Between 'Player Development' and 'Value Shifting'

The Transfer Window and the Multi-Club Wave: The Line Between 'Player Development' and 'Value Shifting'

In the summer of 2026, Savinho left Troyes for Manchester City. European media called it one of the most notable deals of the transfer window, with a figure repeated again and again: about 25 million euros. What was mentioned far less often is that Troyes and Manchester City sit inside the same ownership network — City Football Group. The player did not move from one club to another in the ordinary market sense. He moved from one asset to another, inside the same ledger.

In the 2026/24 season, I sat down to watch every Girona match — the side that unexpectedly finished third in La Liga. I set up a separate column: how many players in Girona's starting line-up came from the City Football Group network, either bought or on loan. The result made me pause my xG work. Across many matchdays, most of Girona's line-up were assets belonging to Manchester City's own owner. That was the moment I understood that the transfer feed describes a free market, while reality operates as a shareholding structure.

Savinho is only the visible part. Beneath him is a system in which player value is created in a cheap market and realised in an expensive one — between two clubs under the same owner.

For more than fifteen years, European football has witnessed an unprecedented wave: conglomerates and investment funds buying multiple clubs across several countries, forming multi-club networks. City Football Group stretches from Manchester to Melbourne, from New York to Mumbai. Red Bull runs Leipzig, Salzburg, New York Red Bulls and Bragantino. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund owns Newcastle United while controlling the four biggest clubs in its domestic league. Jim Ratcliffe's INEOS holds Manchester United, Nice and Lausanne. John Textor's Eagle Football ties Lyon to Botafogo, Crystal Palace and Molenbeek.

In Vietnam, supporters usually read these deals as individual transfers. A player moving from Salzburg to Leipzig is reported as an 'internal transfer'. A player leaving Girona for Manchester City is called 'a big step up'. That reading is not wrong, but it overlooks the most important thing: who benefits from the cash flow, and who carries the risk.

The transfer window is when this structure becomes most visible. It is also when regulators must respond. In November 2026, the Premier League voted through a rule banning loan deals between clubs under the same ownership within the same window. Before that, UEFA forced City Football Group to reduce its stake in Girona so both clubs could play in the 2026/25 Champions League. INEOS had to place Nice into a trust structure so that Nice and Manchester United could both compete in the Europa League. These are milestones worth remembering, because they show the model has reached the limits of the law.

Not every network succeeds. 777 Partners once gathered Genoa, Standard Liege, Vasco da Gama and several other clubs before collapsing, leaving those clubs in fragile financial health. That shows multi-club ownership does not automatically create value. It only creates a structure.

For Vietnamese football, this story is not distant. As international networks expand into Southeast Asia, a V.League club could easily become a link supplying young players to a larger system. That brings money, but it also brings a cost: the right to decide in the transfer market.

To read this correctly, we must separate two things the press usually merges: ownership of the asset and control of the team. In a multi-club network, the owner holds both, but at different levels.

Take City Football Group. CFG holds the majority stake in Manchester City. At Girona, its share was once below 50 per cent and had to be cut to around 30 per cent to comply with UEFA rules. At Troyes, the French club served as the link moving young players from South America into Europe. Savinho came from Atletico Mineiro, passed through Troyes, was loaned to Girona, then moved to Manchester City. Four steps, two tax systems, three leagues, one owner.

In accounting terms, each step is a transaction. In data terms, each step moves value from a low-priced place to a high-priced one. A player's market value does not rise simply because he plays better, but because he has just crossed a valuation border.

The Red Bull network operates on similar logic but more tightly. Salzburg is the nursery. Leipzig is the upgrade and the shop window. The list of players who walked this path is long: Dominik Szoboszlai, Dayot Upamecano, Ibrahima Konate, Benjamin Sesko. Most arrived at Salzburg in their early twenties for a low fee, were pushed to Leipzig, then sold to Liverpool, Bayern Munich or Arsenal at many times the price. Neither club had to buy a player at open-market value. It is a production line, not an auction.

In Saudi Arabia, the model takes a different shape. The Public Investment Fund owns Newcastle United and four major domestic clubs. In theory, this is a network able to move players from the Saudi league into the Premier League. In practice, the Premier League closed that door with the same-owner loan ban. Regulators realised that without a ban, a player could be sent from Al-Hilal to Newcastle on a loan deal, with no transfer, no fee and no public negotiation.

What stands out is that the flow has reversed. For decades, European football exported its model, its coaches and its players to the rest of the world. Now capital from the Gulf and from Asia flows back into Europe, buys clubs, and then uses those very clubs as a launchpad. This is a structural inversion, not merely an investment wave.

Looking at the balance of deals inside these networks, one pattern repeats: most value is created in small markets — Austria, Uruguay, Belgium, Paraguay, Brazil — and realised in large ones — England, Germany, Italy, Spain. The 'satellite' clubs are not tasked with winning trophies. Their job is to build and store assets.

I went back over several recent deals between clubs in the same network. The common thread: very few were priced at open-market value. Most sat at a level both sides knew to be an 'internal price'. That does not mean fraud. It means the figure in the press does not reflect a contest. Numbers never lie - only the way we read them is wrong.

I once tried to build a small model comparing internal transfer prices with open-market prices for players of similar age and metrics. The average gap leaned towards internal pricing, but the dispersion was so wide that no firm conclusion was possible. That is precisely why any judgement about multi-club ownership needs more data before it becomes a conclusion.

The popular explanation for the multi-club wave is player development. Owners create an ecosystem where young talent is nurtured, loaned out and given chances. The story sounds reasonable, and it helps the model earn the tolerance of regulators and fans.

But if you look at the cash flow rather than the player flow, the picture changes. The core benefit of a network is not youth development. It is control over the timing and location of a transaction. An independent club must sell its talent when the market decides, usually when a player nears the end of his contract or when a large enough offer arrives. A network does not. It moves assets between legal entities, keeps control, waits for the best moment, then sells outside.

Here is the counter-intuitive point: multi-club networks are not better at buying players. They are better at delaying the sale. In finance, that is a liquidity advantage. In football, it is a timing advantage.

And that advantage carries risk. When one owner runs several clubs, conflicts of interest appear at every level. Which club gets priority for a European place? Which club receives the better players? Who sets the price in an internal deal? Girona supporters once asked exactly these questions as they watched their best players recalled to Manchester or sold to another club in the network. Local football pays the price for a global conglomerate's growth.

Another point few notice: this model weakens the bargaining power of smaller leagues. When a small club becomes a 'satellite', it loses the right to sell its talent to the highest bidder. The highest bidder is already its owner. Competition in the transfer market — the very thing that generates revenue for small clubs — is narrowed. In the transfer market, a figure of 80 million euros can be... a joke, when both sides of the deal sit at the same table.

The next transfer window will supply more data. The question to track: will regulators loosen or tighten? Will the Premier League's same-owner loan ban spread across Europe, or remain a local fence? Will UEFA demand more price transparency in internal deals? And will the 'satellite' clubs start demanding autonomy?

I do not believe in luck - I believe in a large enough data sample. A few more seasons and we will have a sample big enough to say with confidence: does multi-club ownership produce more good players for world football, or simply more cash flow for a small number of people?

For now, every time I read about a deal, I add one step to my checking routine: do the two clubs share the same ledger? If the answer is yes, every figure behind it needs to be read again. Every number is a testimony; only the patient listener hears the full trial.