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VGK Owner Bill Foley’s Global Soccer Empire Expands With Acquisition Of Portuguese Soccer Team

Bill Foley

VGK owner Bill Foley

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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer

LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Vegas Golden Knights owner Bill Foley has expanded his sports empire by adding a professional soccer team in Portugal to his roster of soccer team properties.

Foley’s Black Knight Football Club bought a majority ownership stake in “Moreirense Futebol Clube – Futebol SAD (“Moreirense FC” or the “Club”), a Portuguese Primeira Liga football club, founded in 1938 and based in Moreira de Cónegos, Portugal,” according to a VGK press release.

The Portuguese team is the latest Foley soccer team acquisition.

Foley owns AFC Bournemouth, an English Premier League club he acquired in Dec. 2022.

He has a minority investment in FC Lorient, a French Ligue 1 club, and also a minority stake in Hibernian FC, a Scottish Premiership football club.

Bill Foley

Foley also owns an A-League expansion soccer team in Auckland, New Zealand, a football club he started in Nov. 2023. The team won the 2024-25 A-League Men’s Premiers Plate (regular season champions) and had the highest attendance in the A-League in its inaugural season, the press release said.

Black Knight Football Club says Portugal is an “attractive destination for the best South American players (and especially Brazilian players) because it gives players time to adapt to European competition in a Portuguese-speaking market. Portugal also has no limit on non-EU players, which makes it a natural destination for South American players,” the release said.


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Alan Snel: Alan Snel brings decades of sports-business reporting experience to LVSportsBiz.com. Snel covered the business side of sports for the South Florida (Fort Lauderdale) Sun-Sentinel, the Tampa Tribune and Las Vegas Review-Journal. As a city hall beat reporter, Snel also covered stadium deals in Denver and Seattle. In 2000, Snel launched a sport-business website for FoxSports.com called FoxSportsBiz.com. After reporting sports-business for the RJ, Snel wrote hard-hitting stories on the Raiders stadium for the Desert Companion magazine in Las Vegas and The Nevada Independent. Snel is also one of the top bicycle advocates in the country.