Chien Lee


Chien Lee is a Chinese-American entrepreneur, investor, and sports team owner. He has built a multi-club ownership model, owns multiple professional European football clubs and is a well-known investor in European football.
Lee is the founder and Chairman of NewCity Capital and co-founder of 7 Days Inn. He is the first person to invest in nine European football clubs including FC Thun, AS Nancy Lorraine, FC Kaiserslautern, GKS Tychy FC. OGC Nice, Barnsley F.C., K.V. Oostende, Esbjerg fB, and FC Den Bosch, He is regarded as a pioneer of multi-club ownership in European football.
The Financial Times stated that Lee has refined Moneyball and The Wall Street Journal called Lee's football journey "a Moneyball experiment in English soccer".

Career

Lee is the founder, Chairman, and CEO of NewCity Capital, a private investment company, focused on the sport and hospitality industries. In August 1989, he founded Lee Holdings Company Inc., a US-based investment company focused on the acquisition of real estate assets. Later in 2005, Lee actively invested in the hospitality Industry, co-founding 7 Days Inn, one of the largest budget hotel chains in China. In 2014, Lee invested in The Grand Ho Tram Strip in Vietnam, one of the region's largest integrated resorts.
In 2016, Lee forayed into professional sports investment and acquired multiple European football clubs, building one of the largest European football portfolios in the world by number of clubs. since June 2016, Lee has invested in 9 European football clubs.
He has created an internal infrastructure and a management team who are able to operate businesses in multiple countries, each with its own unique culture, language, and operational differences. His multi-club ownership is acknowledged as a unique business model in the world's most popular sport. In a 2018 interview with Forbes, Lee stated that:
Lee's ambition to build a European football empire continues as his soccer portfolio keeps expanding; the multi-club ownership gives Lee advantages beyond talent recruitment, capitalizing on the global reach of soccer and maximizing lucrative sponsorship revenues, as well as helping the football clubs grow and become more competitive.

Sports/European football

Multi-club ownership

Lee's first foray into professional sports was in purchasing French top-tier soccer team OGC Nice FC in June 2016. Subsequently, Lee tried to acquire more European soccer teams. In September 2016, Lee held advanced takeover talks with Hull City FC owner Assem Allam. After formally ending his takeover bid for Hull City FC in November, Lee made an offer to buy Middlesbrough FC, but was rejected by club owner Steve Gibson in January 2017. In April 2017, Lee was in talks with Brentford FC owner Matthew Benham over a potential bid for the club. Lee was attracted by Brentford FC’s location in London which is close to Heathrow Airport and its stadium development plans. In December 2017, Lee acquired Barnsley FC from the Cryne family. Later in June 2019, Lee attempted to buy Partick Thistle FC. In November 2019, Lee also invested in FC Thun Football Club. In January 2020, it was reported that Lee was in the race to buy KV Oostende, competing with David Blitzer, co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils. After selling French football club OGC Nice to Great Britain's richest man, Jim Ratcliffe back in August 2019, Lee wanted to return to French football. Already the owner of the Barnsley FC in England and FC Thun in Switzerland, Lee looked to expand his portfolio once more. After prospecting several French clubs, Lee set his sights on Toulouse and its football club and entered into exclusive negotiations to buy Toulouse FC in March 2020. In May 2020, Lee completed the investment in KV Oostende Football Club, the only professional football club on the Belgian coast and the 4th European soccer investment for him. After purchasing KV Oostende Football Club, Lee continued to pursue the French football club Toulouse FC, competing with tech tycoon Michael Dell and his investment fund MSD Capital which were also in the race to buy Toulouse FC. In July 2020, Lee attempted to acquire SV Mattersburg FC, an Austrian football club from Mattersburg, Burgenland.
File:Supporteurs nancéien au Stade de France lors de la finale de la Coupe de la Ligue en 2006.jpg|thumb|left|250px|40,000 fans of AS Nancy were at the Stade de France during the 2006 Coupe de la Ligue final, in which Nancy won the title.
In December 2020, after an unsuccessful attempt to buy Toulouse FC, Lee turned the attention to AS Nancy Lorraine, competing with City Football Group, the owner of Manchester City F.C. He then purchased AS Nancy Lorraine, thus returning to French football. In early February 2021, media reported Lee, together with Pacific Media Group, Partners Path Capital, and Krishen Sud were in the process to buy Denmark's Esbjerg fB Football Club and in discussion with Dutch soccer club FC Den Bosch about a possible takeover. In March 2021, Lee completed the investment in Esbjerg fB. In April 2021, Bloomberg reported Lee's football group was looking for an opportunity to invest in German football, one of Europe's richest leagues. They approached a number of clubs to see if there was a shared philosophy and an opportunity to invest. In September 2021, Lee completed the investment in FC Den Bosch, the first multi-club ownership deal in the Netherlands. In March 2022, Lee together with a group of U.S. investors completed their investment in 1. FC Kaiserslautern, one of the most historic clubs in Germany. in April 2022, it was reported that Lee was looking to buy another football club, Lechia Gdańsk in Poland.
In July 2022, media reported that Lee and Pacific Media Group were in discussions to invest in Hellas Verona F.C., which currently plays in Serie A, the top of the Italian football league. In April 2023, Lee acquired GKS Tychy FC, a Polish professional football club, based in Tychy.
File:Chien Lee at Allianz Riviera Stadium.jpg|thumb|right|250px| Lee at the Allianz Riviera stadium in 2018 with Mefi, the eagle of OGC Nice and the club’s official mascot.
Lee's journey in multi-club ownership captures the highs and lows of modern football investment, His story unfolds from early challenges, setbacks, and failures to a remarkable comeback and the achievement of footballing success. He is a well-known investor who has reshaped the fortunes of several European football clubs across the continent. As chairman, his 2016 investment in OGC Nice led the club to its first-ever UEFA Champions League qualification by 2018. His involvement with FC Kaiserslautern began in March 2022, when the club was in Germany’s third division. That same year, they achieved promotion to the second division of German football, the 2. Bundesliga, and by 2024, they had reached their first German Cup final in 21 years. Lee’s 2019 investment in FC Thun helped the then–second-division side win the 2024–25 Swiss Challenge League title, earning promotion to the top-tier Swiss Super League in 2025. from 2017 to 2022 during Lee's tenure as co-Chairman, Barnsley F.C. experienced two of the most successful seasons in its history: a promotion to the Championship as runners-up in 2018-19, and reaching the Championship play-offs in 2020-21, taking the club to within touching distance of the Premier League with one of the league’s smallest budgets and youngest teams. In 2021, Lee invested in AS Nancy Lorraine amid the club’s struggles in French football and became its chairman. Despite facing numerous challenges — including relegation to the Championnat National in 2022, further relegation to the Championnat National 2, and an administrative demotion to the Championnat National 3, the fifth tier of French football in 2023, Lee rose to the challenge and initiated a comprehensive restructuring of the organization on both sporting and business fronts. This effort led to a remarkable return to the Championnat National in 2024 and culminated in winning the Championnat National title, securing promotion to Ligue 2 in 2025.

Moneyball

Lee has refined Moneyball and his football journey is a Moneyball experiment in European Soccer according to the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, Moneyball, The Art of Winning an Unfair Game is a book by Michael Lewis, published in 2003, about the Oakland Athletics baseball team and its general manager Billy Beane. Its focus is the team's analytical, evidence-based, sabermetric approach to assembling a competitive baseball team despite Oakland's small budget. A film based on Lewis' book, starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, was released in 2011. There are three pillars to Lee's football group version of Moneyball in Soccer, The first is a reliance on analytics over traditional scouting. The second pillar to the group's strategy is a "ruthless commitment to young players", The third and final pillar to Lee's football group Moneyball approach is a narrow focus on the acquisition of players—and coaches—who thrive in a "high-press" system, a forward-thinking, data-driven club with a low-cost, high-pressing formula and Moneyball-like model achieved success at Lee's football group.

Investment style

Lee transformed the way to invest in European football, and his football group focused on investment in distressed clubs and restructuring them on both the business and sporting sides. Many European soccer clubs are struggling to survive and find themselves in alarmingly poor financial positions. Clubs that would never have previously looked for outside investment are now forced to do so because of poor liquidity and massive debt. Lee also focused investment on clubs in lower divisions, taking advantage of the merit-based promotion system and using expertise and good management to get these clubs promoted to higher tiers, thus adding immense value.
Lee uses a data approach to identify talents and coaches, focusing on signing young players with development in mind, capturing the huge potential in the player transfer market, buying players at low prices, and reaping huge rewards by selling them high. Using a data approach to identify talents and focusing on young players, playing high-pressing football on the sporting side, and balancing the budget on the business side is part of the policy for all Lee's football clubs. His multi-club ownership approach creates the ecosystem where each club is run with this financial and recruitment model.
Sheikh Mansour has piped more than £1 billion into City Football Group, including Manchester City F.C. Austrian drinks company Red Bull has poured hundreds of millions into clubs in Austria, Brazil, Germany, and the United States, But Lee's football group have acquired five clubs including Barnsley, Esbjerg, Nancy, Oostende and Thun across Europe at a cost of just over £40 million. According to the Sportico, Lee is an early mover in investing in lower-division developmental clubs in European football, positioning himself to capitalize on future growth and value creation in the sport. Since June 2016, Lee has invested in 9 European football clubs. Below is a list of his current and former clubs in European football:
  • OGC Nice
  • Barnsley FC
  • FC Thun
  • K.V. Oostende
  • AS Nancy Lorraine
  • Esbjerg fB
  • FC Den Bosch
  • 1. FC Kaiserslautern
  • GKS Tychy