On Friday, Michele Kang announced her has acquired London City Lionesses FC, an independent club competing in the FA Women’s Championship. The English club is another “foundational block” in his vision to grow his global multi-club organisation, following his agreement earlier this year to take over OL Feminine and ownership of the Washington Spirit.
“As you can imagine, if you’re trying to build a prominent women’s soccer organization, you have to be where the center of gravity is,” Kang said. The Athletic before Friday’s announcement. “England is really one of them. I was looking for an opportunity to land, and the London City Lionesses being the only independent team, it was a no-brainer.
Instead of convincing a men’s club to allow Kang to split their women’s team apart from the club’s structure, Kang immediately made the jump to the second tier of women’s football in England, with an eye on the WSL.
“Obviously, our goal is to get promoted,” Kang said with a smile.
That independent structure only came about because LCL founder Diane Culligan stepped in to help Millwall FC a few years ago, as they struggled to finish the season on the women’s side of operations. Culligan has established himself in the youth game on his own.
While a standalone women’s team model is common in the US and other countries, that is not the case in England, with many teams attached to top-tier men’s clubs.
“I think it’s fair to say that my ideas and the people running the club at the time didn’t mesh, and that’s when we decided to part ways,” Culligan said. “So the London City Lionesses were born, and we went from there. The only truly independent women’s professional women’s football club in the UK, if we’re talking about a professional game.”
LCL play at Princes Park in Dartford (James Fearn – The FA/The FA via Getty Images)
The Lionesses are currently ninth in the Championship standings, but in the past two seasons they have finished second and third. Their head coach is Carolina Morace and home matches are played at Princes Park in Dartford, 18 miles south-east of central London.
“This is the middle of the season, we will do everything we can to complete the season as successful as possible,” said Kang. “We’re going to figure out where we can add help here operationally, in terms of resources, without disrupting what they’re doing.”
As he always planned, the Lionesses will retain their branding and identity even with the acquisition — similar to how Lyon and the Spirit operate. Adding another team also means another point of justification for more centralized resources across the multi-club organization. “I can make the kind of investment at scale that men’s teams can make,” Kang said.
In May, Kang said The Athletic that his goal is to add three to five additional teams by the end of 2023. Although the Lionesses are the only team he has added this year, talks continue around the world with prospective teams.
“We have some talks going on in Asia; that will definitely be early next year,” Kang said. “We’ll try to pick up where we left off.” He is still targeting other countries in Europe, South America, as well as Mexico — which he mentioned on Friday. Kang also said they have started talks with Africa.
In the case of London City, Kang wants to balance the closing of the 2023-2024 season with a long-term strategy, not just promotion, but becoming a top team in the WSL, and then winning it. The timing is promising from a business perspective, with the top divisions moving to an independent structure outside the Football Association and under NewCo in November. The Lionesses need to earn promotion to earn this reward first, but Kang has shown in the past that he is willing to invest for such a result.
“NewCo’s model for the BWSL and BWC is a great example of how to elevate women’s sports in England and around the world,” Kang said. “We need more investment dedicated solely to the women’s game so that resources are not compromised.”
There is also a huge example for Kang to consider about the potential to enter a lower division: Wrexham. There has already been deep talk of a Championship club being promoted to the WSL, which Liverpool are doing a 90-minute documentary about their move to the WSL. But it’s hard to ignore the way “Welcome to Wrexham” brought eyeballs and engagement to the lower divisions of English football here in the US, and also benefited greatly from the team’s new ownership.
When asked if it was on his mind, he couldn’t stop laughing before answering, “Really. That’s why we’re here, and we’re really going to write another chapter.”
(Photo: Brad Smith/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
