Billionaire Premier League owner Bill Foley now favoured for Auckland A-Leagues club
Bill Foley, 78, is understood to be exploring adding a football club to his existing business interests in New Zealand. He has become Australian Professional Leagues' preferred bidder for the expansion rights within the past fortnight, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.
Foley is the managing general partner of Black Knight Football and Entertainment, a partnership that bought Bournemouth late last year, took a 33% stake in French Ligue 1 club FC Lorient early in 2023, and has outlined plans to add to its portfolio of clubs. Hollywood actor Michael B Jordan is one of its minority investors.
The consortium led by fellow American Marc Mitchell that was previously in the box seat for the Auckland club, as reported by earlier this month, is still in contention, though the emergence of the new bid is understood to have surprised those involved, who had been working hard to build relationships in the local football community and thought they were close to being over the line.
It is understood the Foley bid is financially superior to the Mitchell one, with another plus-point being the existing professional football expertise it brings to the table. Foley entered the sports world in 2017 as the founder and majority owner of the Las Vegas Golden Knights ice hockey team, so he is no stranger to starting a team from scratch.
has attempted to contact Foley for comment through Bournemouth and Cannae Holdings, the investment vehicle he is chair of that owns 50.1% of Black Knight Football & Entertainment, alongside his smaller personal stake. APL declined to comment with the expansion process ongoing.
June was initially set as the target timeframe for finding investors for new A-Leagues clubs in Auckland and Canberra to join A-League Men and Women from the 2024–25 seasons, though APL chief executive Danny Townsend stressed when expansion plans were announced in March that it was not a hard deadline.
The start of the 2023-24 A-League Women season is less than three weeks away, with the 2023-24 A-League Men season due to get going a week later, and it is not clear whether the ownership of the expansion clubs will be finalised before then.
Foley hails from Texas and is a graduate of the West Point military academy who later served in the Air Force. After moving into corporate law, he began accumulating wealth as he revitalised the title insurance company Fidelity National Finance and has gone on to make a wide range of investments, with Forbes placing his net worth in 2023 at US$1.6 billion [NZ$2.7 billion].
In 2020, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Foley donated US$255,600 [NZ$428,000] to controversial former US president Donald Trump during his 2016 and 2020 election campaigns. Last December, NBR reported that Foley had ruled out donating to Trump’s 2024 campaign while speaking to one of its reporters at the Foley Wines AGM in Wellington.
Foley Wines is the oldest of Foley’s business interests in New Zealand, with his involvement in the global industry dating back to 1996, when he established Foley Family Wines, which owns numerous vineyards in California as well as some elsewhere in the US. In New Zealand, its NZX-listed subsidiary owns vineyards in Martinborough, Marlborough and Central Otago and made a $6.3 million profit in its last financial year.
Foley was chair of Foley Wines until earlier this year, when he stood down, citing his new football commitments. His other New Zealand interests include the Foley Hospitality Group of restaurants and bars – formerly the Nourish Group, prior to a 2022 takeover – and the Wharekauhau Country Estate on the Wairarapa Coast, once used by the Prince and Princess of Wales as a hideaway on their 2014 visit.
In his time with the Golden Knights – who earlier this year delivered on his prediction they would claim their first title in their sixth season –and Bournemouth, Foley appears to be generally well-regarded as an owner, though his investment in FC Lorient led to French fans expressing “deep concerns” about potentially becoming a “vulgar satellite club”.
Speaking to BBC Radio Solent shortly after taking charge of Bournemouth, who have played in the EPL for seven of the past nine seasons, Foley said his purchase of the club from Russian Maxim Demin had come after he “looked at several teams over the last two or three years”.
“They all involved minority investment and someone else is already in charge. I don't like that. I'm a dictator.
“When I'm involved, I need to be the captain of the ship. I had to wait for a situation where I could buy the team myself, with my partners of course, and control the destiny of the team.
“I've always said with the Vegas Golden Knights that if there's a mistake made then it's on me. I'll take responsibility and I plan on doing the same thing with AFCB.”
Foley provided an update on his vision for a multi-club strategy with Bournemouth “at the top of the pyramid” on the Men in Blazers podcast this week, saying BKFE’s stake in Lorient was set to rise to 100% “in a few years, because it’s set up on a phased basis”.
He reaffirmed his previously-declared interest in investing in Belgium, but revealed new interest in Scotland, saying BKFE was “working towards [becoming a minority investor] with a particular team”.
An A-Leagues club would sit at the bottom of the pyramid Foley has referenced, but a number of Australian and New Zealand players and coaches have moved to Scotland as their first destination in Europe in recent years, a pathway BKFE could seek to prosper from.
“I believe that if we can end up with four or five economic interests in various clubs, that we will have the system in place for players to advance and to move on to the next club, [then] to move on to the next club,” Foley said.
“We will have similar analytic staff in place and technical directors that will look for the right type of players that they know can play ultimately for AFC Bournemouth.”
