For Immediate Release: Turkish media mogul Acun Ilıcalı, the owner of the global media company ACUNMEDYA, has become the majority shareholder in Shelbourne Football Club.
Dublin, Ireland: Shelbourne Football Club has announced that Acun Ilıcalı has become the majority shareholder of the club. Acun Ilıcalı has founded one of the biggest independent media and entertainment companies, empowered with the vision to deliver inspiring and creative content worldwide.
This investment will be used to support the growth and development of the club by investing in the men’s and women’s first teams, the academy, and its facilities with an ambition to make Shelbourne FC Ireland’s most successful football club. The deal is expected to bring additional benefit as it will create material synergy between Shelbourne FC and Hull City FC, which is fully owned by Acun Ilıcalı.
After the investment, existing shareholders will continue to be investors in the Club and the parties will collaborate closely for the future success of the club
The founder and Chairman of ACUNMEDYA, the owner of the Hull City FC and the new Chairman of Shelbourne FC, Acun Ilıcalı said; “I am deeply impressed by the passion and motivation of the Shelbourne FC family and we believe that the club offers great potential to succeed in European football.
Our vision for Shelbourne FC is to become the leader of the League of Ireland and demonstrate consistent success in European competitions. We believe that our investment and commitment will shape the future of the football in our academy, which will become the most modern academy structure in Ireland.
We want to scout, recruit and train talented prospects from all over Ireland and Europe to be part of our family. With our global expertise and vision in football, media and entertainment verticals, we aim to bring new energy to Irish football and Shelbourne FC, one of the oldest clubs in Ireland, by further strengthening the deep-rooted bond between the fans and the club, like we did in Hull City.”
Welcoming the deal, Andrew Doyle, who takes up the role of vice-chairman Shelbourne FC, said: “This is a transformational deal for Shelbourne Football Club and a huge boost to our ambitions to make Shelbourne Ireland’s most successful football club both domestically and in Europe.
The investment will give us the resources to make significant investment in club facilities, the men’s and women’s senior teams and the academy. This partnership will help us finalise ongoing projects and seize many other opportunities that will benefit our senior teams, academy and facilities.
There will be huge opportunities to leverage the synergies with the management expertise and resources of ACUNMEDYA ,Shelbourne and Hull City in ways that can be very significant for everyone involved.”
ACUN ILICALI
Acun Ilıcalı is a television icon, a broadcaster, an entrepreneur, an international TV producer and a businessman. He is the owner of TV channels TV8 and TV8,5, Türkiye’s digital platform EXXEN, production company ACUNMEDYA which has been broadcasting in several countries, including Türkiye, the USA, Mexico, Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Balkans, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic. The group does highly successful productions for leading television channels worldwide, and he develops broadcasting strategies for the channels he works with. Furthermore, he is the owner of the format of competition program Exatlon, which is the first sports reality format in the world.
Several documentaries, books and programs have been made about Ilıcalı’s life, covering his career from being a sports reporter to become a media mogul.
He has been awarded more than 1,000 awards in various categories and has been described as one of the most reliable names in Türkiye according to the surveys. In the period from 2018 to 2022, he was listed among the 500 most influential businessmen in the media and entertainment sector by Variety magazine.
Along with his successful media projects, Ilıcalı has made considerable global investments in the OTT platform/digital-platform, sports, textile, e-trade, education, building/construction, health, cosmetics sector and football, being his most recent venture with the takeover of Hull City in 2022.
ENDS
For more information
Darren Cleary
Shelbourne FC
Head of Media and Communications
Darren.Cleary@shelbournefc.ie
