Bournemouth owner Bill Foley outlines plans for Lorient | OneFootball

Having acquired a minority stake in Ligue 1 side Lorient back in January, American investor Bill Foley, via his company Black Knight Football and Entertainment, now owns interest in football teams on both sides of the English Channel, having also become majority shareholder of Bournemouth.

In a recent interview with The Athletic, Foley emphasises what he sees as the potential benefits of a multi-club ownership model in terms of moving players from Ligue 1 to the Premier League – a prospect which already materialised this winter with forward Dango Ouattara’s move to England.

For the time being, Lorient are presided over by Loïc Féry. Nevertheless, Foley is unusually frank about his intentions for the Breton club as a feeder club for Bournemouth, and also indicates that there is a possibility for him to become majority shareholder of Les Merlus at some point in the future:

“It’s a place where we can put players and buy players. The multi-club model is the second part of the story. If I’m going to acquire players, why don’t I acquire them from myself? It’s a lot less expensive. The only downside is if you have two or three really good teams, only one can play in Europe.”

Although he indicates that he would want to see Lorient in Europe, and that he wouldn’t necessarily want them to sell their best players, but he does want to place Bournemouth as a priority destination:

“If a player wants to move on, I don’t want him to move to Liverpool or Arsenal — I want him to move to us.”

GFFN | Raphaël Jucobin