Former New Zealand captain led takeover of French club and wants Crux Football to add more teams to portfolio
“I wanted to try to build something that I wish had existed when I was playing.”
At the core, that is what has driven Bex Smith, the former New Zealand captain, to set up a multi-club ownership group and attempt to create environments for women’s teams that her generation could only dream of. On Wednesday, her vision took a step towards reality as her investment group Crux Football completed the purchase of their first team, buying a 100% stake in the French club Montpellier.
Smith says the acquisition of more clubs will follow and, while Crux Football is a new name for the sport, there are familiar figures among their investors, not least the legendary former USA captain Julie Foudy. But Smith, who founded the company and is the chief executive, is calling the shots and, in an interview with the Guardian, the two-time Olympian explains why Montpellier and why France but also – given all the different careers a retired player could try to pursue after hanging up their boots – why club ownership?
“As a tiny kid, I never actually wanted to be a professional footballer. That was not really my dream – I just kind of fell in love with football [but] I always thought I wanted to be an entrepreneur like my parents and do something that I really was passionate about,” says Smith, who has a masters degree in psychology and initially moved into a competitions manager role at Fifa after retiring, working on the 2019 Women’s World Cup where one of the hosts cities was, incidentally, Montpellier.
