{"id":540485,"date":"2026-04-20T04:51:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T04:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/540485\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T04:51:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T04:51:11","slug":"billionaire-bournemouth-owners-set-to-buy-exeter-chiefs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/540485\/","title":{"rendered":"Billionaire Bournemouth owners set to buy Exeter Chiefs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Exeter Chiefs are set to be taken over by the billionaire owners of AFC Bournemouth pending a vote of the Gallagher Prem club\u2019s members at an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) next month.<\/p>\n<p>Black Knight Football Club, a consortium that features the Hollywood actor Michael B Jordan and is headed by the American businessman Bill Foley, acquired <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/topic\/afc-bournemouth\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bournemouth<\/a> in December 2022. It also owns\u00a0Lorient in France and has a majority stake in Portuguese club Moreirense.<\/p>\n<p>Foley is chairman of Fidelity National Financial, Cannae Holdings and Black Knight Financial Services. Forbes estimates his wealth at $2.6\u200abillion (\u00a31.92\u200abillion). Ryan Caswell, an associate of Foley, represented the Black Knight consortium at Exeter\u2019s game against Northampton Saints at Sandy Park on Saturday, sitting next to the Chiefs chairman, Tony Rowe.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   height=\"3759\" width=\"5506\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/90fd19fe-3473-40ea-abaf-ccfd9a5bdd87.jpg\" alt=\"Michael B Jordan and Bill Foley shake hands at a football match.\" class=\"wp-image-21666600\"\/>Michael B Jordan with FoleyAlamy<\/p>\n<p>It is thought the sale of Exeter will be ratified if it is voted through by 75 per cent of Exeter members, who number about 700. They can vote by proxy at the EGM. Sources suggested that Exeter trustees will have plans presented to them over the coming week.<\/p>\n<p>Black Knight\u2019s interest in English rugby union continues a period of impressive financial consolidation after Red Bull\u2019s purchase of Newcastle in August last year. James Dyson acquired a 50 per cent ownership stake in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/topic\/bath-rugby\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bath<\/a> a month ago and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/topic\/northampton-saints\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Northampton<\/a> were boosted by the arrival of a new minority investor in Steve Zander.<\/p>\n<p>Rowe, 77, has publicly sought new owners and told The Guardian last week that it was time for English clubs to \u201cwake up and smell the coffee\u201d as they look towards a franchised top tier.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve effectively run a business for the last 30-odd years for a shareholder who\u2019s got no money,\u201d Rowe said. \u201cWhat I\u2019m looking forward to is an investor who\u2019s got some money. That\u2019ll be a massive difference for me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exeter Chiefs are set to be taken over by the billionaire owners of AFC Bournemouth pending a vote&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-540485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}