If you don’t already know about Michele Kang, you will soon
Michele Kang is arguably one of the most important names in women’s football right now, and she will remain as such well into the future.
Kang has become synonymous with the business of women’s sports, and fans can prepare to hear her name more and more. The 65-year-old is a South Korea-born American investor who owns three women’s football teams, and recently pledged a donation of $30 million to U.S. Soccer.
The organisation says “The investment from Kang will scale competitive opportunities for youth players, expand and improve talent identification, and fuel professional development for female players, coaches, and referees.”
Kang’s money, however, is not what everyone wanted or expected.
Who is Michele Kang?
Kang is the founder and CEO of Kynisca, the first multi-team global organisation dedicated to women’s football, launched during the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Kang owns the NWSL’s Washington Spirit, Division 1 Féminine’s Olympique Lyonnais, and the Barclays Women’s Championship’s London City Lionesses.
Her investment goes beyond football, extending to Just Women’s Sports, as well as the U.S. women’s rugby sevens team.
In October, it was revealed that Kynisca would be helping to fund women’s footwear brand IDA Sports. Kang said: “There is minimal sports science research focused solely on female athletes, resulting in training routines, performance recovery plans and shoe and clothing designs with a male body type as the baseline.
IDA challenges this traditional way of thinking, creating high performance, comfortable footwear for female athletes to maximise potential on the field. Women’s sports should never be an afterthought.”
Fan concerns over Kang’s multi-club ownership
Despite how positive this might sound, many women’s football fans are apprehensive about Kang’s approach, with some deeming her expenditure to be monopolisation.
A number of supporters of women’s sports have also expressed their anger at the prospect of multi-club ownership. The Athletic explains “Critics have argued that the model creates conflicts of interest, damages competition, and raises questions over integrity.”
“It’s actually a necessity rather than a luxury or a choice, because there’s so much investment needed,” counters Kang.
The businesswoman has come under fire despite The Athletic’s claim that her “Eye-popping investment is to be used in areas of U.S. Soccer that don’t get a lot of shine and certainly won’t get a lot of headlines over the next five years as the work is carried out. That was a motivation for Kang in many ways — this isn’t for splashy projects, such as the national training centre.”
Kang is not the first, and she certainly won’t be the last, to ‘buy’ a team. Ryan Reynolds did it with Wrexham, and NFL star Patrick Mahomes is co-owner of the NWSL’s Kansas City Current. There appears to be comparatively minimal criticism of Mahomes’ similar vision of “Establishing the best women’s soccer club in the world and having the Kansas City Current serve as a model for all of women’s sports.”
Kang has a generally active presence, and has attended games in three different countries. Whilst this understandably raises concerns surrounding climate change, her commitment to the support is evident, and not reserved for clubs already competing at the highest level. Yet, Kang has her intent called into question frequently, whilst Mahomes endures far less interrogation.
London City Lionesses defender Georgia Brougham said during preseason, “You can tell she [Kang] cares about women, everything we do is women’s based, whether that’s gym programmes or the things that we speak about now, like, we have women’s health, where it tracks our cycles every month, and they’re very big on us as women, we’re never compared to the men.”
Kang’s critics
The Sports Gazette spoke to football analyst Marc Lamberts about his take on Kang’s work. Lamberts expressed his view that objectively, this kind of investment in women’s football makes sense at this point in time. “I think that people see it as buying football, but I do also see it as someone who takes the risk of really investing away from the traditional powerhouses,” Lamberts said.
He continued: “If people mind the money, where is the energy for Manchester City? For Chelsea? For Wolfsburg?”
Lamberts also pointed out the relevance of the misogynistic culture of women being pitted against each other, explaining how this impacts the reception of Kang’s efforts. “When women do it, there is an extra barrier,” he concluded.
One result of the discourse surrounding Kang is the furthering of an existing polarisation between supporters who have engaged with women’s football for quite some time, and those who came into the picture more recently – perhaps after the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 or FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023.
It is not uncommon for Premier League fans to feel disconnected from football thanks to the obscene amount of money hoarded by the league and its relevant organisations. This alienation, many fear, will extend across into the women’s game if those holding the power are not careful with how investment is executed.
The benefits of Kang’s project currently outweigh these concerns. Like it or not, change is here, and it is crucial to note how differently Kang is perceived and portrayed by football fans in comparison to her white, male counterparts.
