“We were advising on stadium real estate, but the more we looked into the football ecosystem, the more we realised there was an opportunity to build something real,” he says. “There was a lot of ‘play money’ in football, but very few treating it like a genuine business.” The Civitas group now spans property, investment, data science, and professional sport backgrounds. With strategic diversity and shared passion as their core, they identified Sutton United – with an estimated annual turnover of £4 million ($8.2 million) – as the perfect launchpad. “We weren’t even looking at the UK initially,” Alexiou admits. “It felt too competitive, too hard to break into. But Sutton ticked every box – historic, community-focused, undervalued, and full of potential.” The history of investors in English football charts the sport’s transformation from local pastime to global business. For much of the 20th century, club owners were often local businessmen, driven more by loyalty than profit.