Ropes & Gray Advises TPG Portfolio Company Footballco on Acquisition of Kooora

Ropes & Gray has advised leading global alternative asset manager TPG and its portfolio company Footballco on the acquisition of Kooora, a Middle East digital sports publisher.

Footballco, a football-focused content and media business backed by TPG and sports entertainment company DAZN, is home to more than 300 content creators and owns GOAL – the world’s largest football publisher – as well as community brands Mundial, INDIVISA, and NXGN, and web-video player FC player. Its content is available in 16 countries. The purchase of Kooora – which comes ahead of an anticipated increase in demand for football content from viewers in the region in the runup to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar – follows its acquisition of the Italian football news website CalcioMercato in August 2021. 

Kooora is published in Arabic and English and reaches an average of 25 million unique users a month and has a strong social media presence, especially across Gen-Z platforms, TikTok and Snapchat, which generate in excess of 17m monthly video views.

The Ropes & Gray team was led by private equity partner John Newton, with associates Phoebe Glenister-So, Victoria Srivastava and George Taylor and trainee Sienna Hewavidana, all based in London. Other members of the team included: data, privacy & cybersecurity partner Rohan Massey and associate Robyn Annetts; and tax partner Andrew Howard and associate Benjamin Wonnacott, also all based in London.