Ankura Consulting

As the popularity of many sports continues to grow and a wave of private investment presents a multitude of new commercial opportunities, a dynamic environment has emerged in which clubs, franchises, leagues, investors, sponsors, governing bodies, international federations, and other stakeholders require support from advisors that truly understand the sector.

Ankura’s Sports Advisory professionals appreciate the relationship between sport, business, and society. We Protect, Create, and Recover Value for our clients through:

• Governance & investigations to reduce reputational risk
  
• Forensic accounting & due diligence to recognize value in deals and disputes
  
• Geopolitical and infrastructure advisory for major events to manage and mitigate reputational and financial risks
  

Our cross-functional team of experts and advisors brings an extensive level of expertise in risk, compliance, investigations, forensic accounting, construction, infrastructure, and geopolitical advisory – all underpinned by cutting edge technology.

We serve as trusted advisors to the world's leading organizations across the sports sector, and our specialists provide the experience and skills necessary to develop well‐defined and executable strategies that protect reputation and assets and maximize performance.

Our professional’s experience includes:

• Leading cross-jurisdictional governance and compliance reviews for a global sports federation. This required assessment of controls and undertaking transaction testing across 50+ countries, resulting in bespoke recommendations around controls and governance.
• Advising the Qatar government following their successful bid for the 2022 football World Cup on infrastructure and stadium planning including the procurement and contracting processes for contractors.
• Formulating and programming the computer simulation that formed the basis of a settlement between the US National Football League (NFL) and former players relating to cognitive impairments caused by concussion.
• Performing valuation work relating to Premier League and Football League clubs. Also engaged as an accounting expert in a matter relating to a Financial Fair Play dispute between an English football club and their governing league.
• Acting as an expert for a global governing body in proceedings before the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Evidence focused on an investigation into alleged corruption and conflicts of interest for a senior elected official.
• Performing a valuation of the diminution of the media rights acquired by a media company to a major global sporting event following the event organiser’s failure to enforce the sports star’s exclusive advertising for sponsors.
• Collecting and analysing mobile devices in multiple cases for governing bodies and integrity units relating to investigations into match-fixing, doping and cyber issues.
• Undertaking reputational due diligence on multiple transactions relating to the acquisition of and investment into sports assets. This work has assisted in de-risking deals by considering reputational and regulatory risks and associated mitigation.
• Producing an expert report and provided statistical analysis on a player’s performance in a grand slam tennis tournament in an appeal of fines they received for allegedly poor performance.

Areas of Specialism:

Risk & Compliance

- Reviews of usage of development funding

- Anti-bribery, corruption, and integrity reviews

- Controls framework and governance reviews

- Organisational and governance reform

- Sanctions screening

Transactions

- Integrity due diligence into the target investment and key individuals

- Valuations of sporting clubs, stadia, media rights and other assets

- Pre-acquisition anti-bribery and corruption due diligence

- Post-acquisition anti-bribery and corruption reviews

- Post-acquisition disputes

Investigations & Disputes

- Forensic accounting investigations including financial fair play

- Dispute and delay analysis for construction and infrastructure

- Expert witness on accounting matters, including valuations

- Ethical breaches and other misconduct matters

- Anti-doping & match fixing

- Bribery & corruption

- Complex fraud

Business Intelligence

- Understanding complex organisational structures and stakeholder mapping

- Reputational diligence on individuals and entities

- Asset identification and tracing

- Strategic intelligence

- Bid support

Technology

- Cybersecurity advisory and cyber incident response

- Forensic collection of data and mobile devices

- Data processing, hosting, and production

- Digital forensic analysis of devices

- Forensic data analytics and modelling

- Data leak response and investigations

Political Risk Analysis

- Security risk analysis for major tournaments

- Risk assessments for major event awarding

- Host city and country bid analyses

- Geopolitical country risk analysis

Office Locations:

• Ann Arbor
• Atlanta
• Baltimore
• Beijing
• Boston
• Brussels
• Chicago
• Dallas
• Delhi
• Dubai
• Fairfield
• Frankfurt am Main
• Gurugram
• Hong Kong
• Houston
• Irvine
• London
• Los Angeles
• Melbourne
• Miami
• Mumbai
• Nashville
• New York
• Orlando
• Perth
• Philadelphia
• Phoenix
• Riyadh
• San Francisco
• San Juan
• Seattle
• Singapore
• Sydney
• Tampa
• Toronto
• Vancouver
• Washington, DC