Burnley look set to become the latest side to join the growing numbers of clubs moving into multi-ownership.Read MoreFormer Burnley striker bids emotional farewell to Championship outfit after five...Spanish outlet Mundo Deportivo say that Pace – owner of the investment fund ALK Capital – has submitted an offer in the region of €180m (£154m) to acquire a majority stake.The intention, it’s claimed, is to integrate Espanyol into a multi-club model.The report also states the potential takeover is likely to be discussed at the club’s upcoming shareholders’ meeting, which takes place on Friday, June 27.But what is multi-club ownership (MCO)? What are the advantages and what are the potential drawbacks?We spoke with Kieran Maguire, a football finance expert and the man behind the Price of Football podcast, to get his views. Here’s what he had to say:Alan Pace, inset, is reportedly close to sealing a takeover of Spanish side Espanyol. Picture: Getty ImagesWhy is the multi-club model so attractive?Well, first of all, from an American owner point of view, you're spreading your risk.The chances of both sides being relegated is far lower than the chances of one side being relegated, so if one goes down and one has a half-decent season, they can effectively counter-balance the other. So that's it from a business risk point of view.And Burnley being where they are, you expect them to be in that sort of twilight zone of bottom six of the Premier League and top six of Championship. Sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn't, so it helps to reduce that risk.Then we've got the practical consequences. This is not a political comment in any way, shape or form. Brexit has caused problems for clubs when they're trying to recruit from the European Union because under the Freedom of Movement of Labour rules, you could recruit a 16 or a 17-year-old from France or Belgium or Portugal to the Premier League.Under the new rules, since the exit from the European Union, those players can go from Belgium to Spain or Belgium to Italy or Belgium to Germany at the ages of 16 and 17. They cannot sign for a Premier League club or another English club until they're 18. So therefore having a club which is located in the EU makes sense because Burnley scouts spot somebody decent, take him to Espanyol, he's there, he might end up playing for Espanyol or you've got an opportunity for that player to come to the Premier League at 18 and he's not already been snaffled by a half-decent club elsewhere in Europe because he's already sort of within the confines of the MCO.We've seen Watford do that an awful lot with Udinese. You look at the number of transfers between those two clubs and it's amazing, so that's sort of one of the positives.What other positives are there?Another one of the positives is that in theory you can say this is the way the ALK group is going to play football and you've got directors of football who are employed to make sure that happens.So as you may be aware I'm a Brighton fan. When they first spotted [Karou] Mitoma, they didn't feel he was ready for the Premier League but by bringing him into Europe and Brighton had a, or Tony Bloom, the Brighton owner, had a Belgian club called USG, he got an experience of the culture of Europe, different expectations but there was an overlap between the Brighton philosophy of football and the USG philosophy of football.So therefore the move from USG to Brighton was a much smaller step than it would have been otherwise. So you've got consistency in terms of the way that the clubs play football and so on.It can be useful for sponsors as well. You can now say I can offer you a sponsorship in both England and Spain, two big footballing countries. The sponsors want as much global sort of eyeballs as possible and that's one way of achieving it. So those are sort of the main benefits.What drawbacks are there?The downside is that sometimes the fans can get a bit angsty. Nobody wants to be anything other than top dog.So if you take a look at Leeds and Rangers, they've now got 49ers investments involved in both clubs. Leeds fans are saying well if there's £20m left in the transfer budget this season, is that going to Rangers or is that going to Leeds? And so there is the potential for some bad blood. You know how fans are very emotionally invested in their clubs.I think the other negative is that they don't really work particularly well, these models in practice. Liverpool have won the Premier League without being part of an MCO. Newcastle won the FA Cup. Barcelona and Real Madrid or PSG, all these clubs in continental Europe, they’re not necessarily part of an MCO and yet they seem to do fine.So there's a case for saying that they look good in theory and people are getting into them because they do look good in theory, but not many of them you could say are a success.I mean, Red Bull sort of, but even so it's not been a spectacular success.What are the current rules and legislation surrounding MCOs?The rules are quite clear as far as UEFA is concerned.You cannot have one person controlling or significantly influencing two clubs which are operating in the same competition because there's fear of compromising the integrity of results of those teams playing against each other.That's why we've got the issue [with Crystal Palace]. John Textor doesn't control Crystal Palace, but he's got 40 per cent of the shares.The argument is that because he gets outvoted at board meetings, that he's not influencing the club either. Nottingham Forest, I think, and UEFA are looking at the small print in greater detail.Do you expect it to be a leveraged buyout? The figure mentioned is €180m (£154m), does that seem fair?I'm not aware of the acquisition models. I don't think it is prohibited.It seems to me to be a fairly steep price though because La Liga doesn't have the same level of broadcast revenues as the Premier League. If you're not getting the same broadcast revenues, then you're not going to be getting the same sponsorship revenues because you're not being seen by so many people every week.To me that seems a bit steep, that price, but we are seeing huge inflation in the football club market because there's a fixed number of clubs and there's more and more people interested in buying clubs.Continue Reading