Celebrity investment is all the rage in English football.
Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac’s takeover of Wrexham – a Welsh team playing in the English league system – in 2021 has provided the blueprint of the commercial momentum that an endorsement from Hollywood can offer a club.
Since then, we’ve seen rapper Snoop Dogg invest in Swansea City, comedy great Will Ferrell join the 49ers Enterprises consortium which owns Leeds United and, most recently, internet personality KSI buy into Dagenham & Redbridge.
There are different types of investment, however. Some tend towards the gimmicky end of the spectrum, while others are genuine venture capital manoeuvres by investors who have accumulated huge wealth and are looking to sport, as an asset class where valuations trend up and to the right, for outsized returns.
Reynolds and Mac’s investment in Wrexham has proven inspired. That club, bought for pennies on the pound, was valued at £375m when Apollo, one of the world’s biggest private equity firms, bought into it in late-2025.
It is the Premier League, however, where valuations keep climbing despite losses totalling nearly £1bn last season, where the biggest opportunities and risks lie.
Brentford confirm details of Claudia Schiffer and Matthew Vaughn investment
Brentford are one of English football’s success stories. They narrowly missed out on European football last season, have spent six successive seasons in the Premier League and have a recruitment model which is rated as one of the best in European football.
Last summer, Brentford revealed that they had secured investment from Marv Studios, which is co-owned by British filmmaker Matthew Vaughn and supermodel turned Hollywood actress Claudia Schiffer.
The investment came at the holding company level through Best Intentions Analytics, through which Matthew Benham – and now Vaughn and Schiffer – also own Spanish side Merida AD.
Today, football finance expert Greg Cordell has highlighted new details from Brentford’s accounts which reveal the specifics of the investment.
As Cordell, who is the author of the Vanity, Sanity and Reality newsletter, relays, the deal was structured in two instalments, one £20m investment in July last year, followed by a subsequent £30m investment in February 2026.
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