Digital football platform Dugout raises £8.3m investment led by Marseille owner Frank McCourt

Digital football platform Dugout has received a new £8.3m investment led by Marseille’s American owner Frank McCourt and brother David.

Over 70 of the world’s biggest football clubs — including Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester City, Arsenal and Juventus — partner with Dugout where they have dedicated channels to upload content and interact with fans directly without going through third party social media firms.

The McCourt brothers and a number of other strategic smaller-scale investors are investing £8.3m after Dugout has gathered 67m unique users and 912m video views on 12,500 videos posted to its channels by clubs and brands in just over a year since its 2016 launch.

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Frank McCourt owns French club Marseille while David has been described as a “telecoms revolutionary” and is founder of streaming service ALTV, popular in the MENA region in which Dugout is aiming to fuel growth with its new investment.

“Frank and David bring with them decades of commercial success, experience and entrepreneurial zeal – they are fantastic partners as we move into the next phase of our development as a business,” said Dugout chairman and founder Elliot Richardson.

“We’re thrilled with how popular the platform has proven so far with fans, as well as the brands and commercial partners we’ve brought into the fold. This investment keeps that momentum going and partnerships with innovators like ALTV and Alchemy Media both enhance our technology offering and open up key markets like the Middle East and North Africa, where we know our club partners have such huge support.”