With Major League Soccer reportedly poised to publicly announce the sale of Chivas USA as early as next week, some names have now emerged but one of them has attracted the most attention: Vincent Tan. The Malaysian billionaire is one of several big-money investors willing to pay more than $100 million in order to buy, rebrand and build a stadium for Chivas USA, according to Grant Wahl’s reporting on Fox Sports 1 and expanded upon at Sports Illustrated. The new team would apparently jettison any ties to Chivas USA, effectively start over from scratch and likely begin play in 2017.
Vincent Tan may be part of new Chivas USA ownership group
Malaysian billionaire would be a minority part of group that is led by Henry Nguyen and includes Peter Guber and Tom Penn.
Michael Steele
Tan is best known for his involvement in the controversial rebranding of Cardiff City. His investment group took control over the Welsh club in 2010 and although they invested millions of dollars in order to help the team move up to the Premier League, the promotion lasted only one year and his tenure has been more broadly defined by the rebrand and some strange personnel moves.
For a fan base that is still very much recovering from Chivas USA's prior mismanagement, Tan's involvement in the new group will hardly ease any fears.
That said, the hand-wringing may be a bit over the top as Wahl later reported that Tan would be a minority owner and that Henry Nguyen will be the majority owner. Joining them as the main investors in the group are Peter Guber and Tom Penn.
Nguyen is a Vietnamese-American who most recently got into the news by buying the first McDonald’s franchise in Vietname. Guber is a Hollywood producer who has an ownership stake in the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Dodgers. Penn is a former NBA executive, a somewhat renowned “cap-ologist” as well as a former ESPN analyst.
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