Players are acquired across Europe with one eye on future sales to England and often purchased with money that is a downstream consequence of the Premier League's apparently pandemic-proof broadcast deals
Union's players celebrate after a soccer match between Royale Union Saint-Gilloise and Cercle Brugge, Saturday 18 December 2021 in Brussels, on day 20 of the 2021-2022 'Jupiler Pro League' first division of the Belgian championship. (Photo by KRISTOF VAN ACCOM/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images)
That first meeting told Alex Muzio all he needed to know. Not long after he and his business partner, gambling tycoon Tony Bloom, bought Royale Union Saint-Gilloise, a Belgian soccer team, Muzio sat down with the club’s coach. He wanted to discuss potential recruits.
Muzio had never been a soccer player. He had never been a scout. He had spent his career working for Bloom’s Starlizard consultancy, the firm many consider to be the largest betting syndicate in Britain.
Starlizard’s business model is using data to find an edge. It has information on tens of thousands of players from across the world. Its bespoke algorithms are designed to trawl through it and spot opportunities first, then talent. Starlizard’s plan in team ownership was to do the same.
Bloom already owned a team in England: The club he has always supported, Brighton, has been transformed into a mainstay of the Premier League by Bloom’s money and methods. But he and Muzio wanted to see what else their “IP” could achieve. “We wanted,” Muzio said, “to win a title.”
By May 2018, when Bloom completed his purchase of Union, Muzio was itching to get started. The club, which last celebrated a title in the years between world wars, was at the time mired in the second tier of Belgian soccer. It was staffed largely by volunteers. Its training facility in the suburbs of Brussels did not have showers. Muzio still cannot say with certainty that there was a toilet.
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