Women’s soccer ownership group Crux Football has made its first acquisition, purchasing French top-flight side Montpellier HSC Féminines.
The group, led by former New Zealand international Bex Smith, takes immediate control of the club from the Nicollin family, which also owns the Montpellier men’s team.
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Two-time winners of France’s Première Ligue (most recently in 2005), Montpellier finished 6th in the 2024-25 campaign, but reached the UEFA Women’s Champions League (UWCL) as recently as 2017-18.
Crux has acquired 100% of Montpellier Feminines and, going forward, aims to position the club as the flagship in a multi-club group.
Speaking at a press conference attended by Sportcal at the Leaders in Sport summit, Smith revealed: “Where the women’s game is… in Europe, there's not the media money coming in, there's not the sponsorship [revenue] coming in, the fan bases aren't necessarily big enough yet that running a club independently can be really profitable. So what we're looking to do is combine multiple clubs across Europe in different areas.”
She revealed that Crux has examined the markets of Scandinavia, Germany, the UK, Sweden, Spain, and, of course, France, for club acquisition opportunities, and outlined a timeline for the group to take shape, adding: “The next club could be as soon as early next year.
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By GlobalData“The third one could be potentially already summer next year as well. So we're looking to acquire quite quickly and expand quickly, but we also want to make sure that we're taking Montpellier, making sure that we're getting the foundations right with this club.”
Smith, a former executive at the FIFA global soccer governing body, is the founder and chief executive of Crux, and runs the organization alongside chief operating officer Ben Levin (former vice-chair of English side Crawley Town), and chief of staff Megan Hession (a global investor-operator).
The leadership group also includes two major investors in the form of strategic director of football Ted Knutson, who founded soccer data and analytics platform StatsBomb (and previously led recruitment at English side Brentford), and marketing and commercial advisor Adrien Farina, who previously led marketing at global payments giant Visa.
Other prominent investors include 18-year Netflix veteran Cindy Holland, who leads direct-to-consumer for media heavyweight Paramount, her wife Annie Imhoff, and former US women’s national team captain Julie Foudy, all of whom are invested in US soccer side Angel City FC.
On the commercial side of the business, Smith revealed at the conference that Montpellier will be focusing on attracting sponsors not just locally, but internationally, to power the club’s finances.
She said: “We've already had some great conversations with commercial partners [in] Montpellier, France, [and] Europe wide […] we're looking at building a commercial strategy that isn't just local, it's not just in Montpellier or any of our individual clubs, but really looking at a commercial partnership that we can do that's more pan-European.
“We want to be able to appeal to larger brands that either are European-based and looking for a pan-European footprint, or potentially even from the US that are looking to get into a European market.”
A difficulty in this, Smith conceded, is ensuring the club has the visibility to attract such sponsors. Currently, the Première Ligue’s international distribution is limited, and since Montpellier do not compete in the UWCL, the club’s European presence is similarly slim.
Smith pointed to the expertise of Holland as a potential lever to growing commercial revenue, explaining: “I think we want to be working with the leagues as well to help support them in the best way that we can in terms of looking at media from a differentiated standpoint.
“So, rather than just copying and pasting what the men have done, looking at different ways that we can create visibility with traditional media outlets like [Canal+] and the TV stations, but also, what are some of the other ways that we can create more visibility for our women's teams? And that's where we're aiming to get creative.
“But we want to be working in collaboration with the leagues and UEFA […] to see how we can work together to enable [us] to be able to drive more visibility?”
Crux Football is the latest women's sports-focused multi-club group, following hot on the heels of the likes of Michelle Kang's Kynsica (which owns France's Lyon and England's London City Lionesses), and Mercury 13 (Italy's Como FC and England's Bristol City).
