Who Owns Sunderland?

Sunderland is owned by Kyril Louis-Dreyfus and Juan Sartori, who between them hold 100% of the club — reported at roughly 64% and 36%. Companies House records the club as controlled by Sunderland Limited, and the club’s own company, 00049116, was incorporated on 12 August 1896 — one of the oldest company numbers on this site. Stewart Donald has exited entirely. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns Sunderland?

The club is SUNDERLAND ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL CLUB, LIMITED (THE) (00049116), incorporated 12 August 1896 and registered at the Stadium of Light.

That five-digit number is remarkable. It places the club among the oldest continuously registered companies covered anywhere on this site — older than BP’s 1909 registration, older than Paramount’s 1915 British company, and a full century older than most football clubs’ current entities.

Its person with significant control is Sunderland Limited, at 75% or more of shares and votes with the right to appoint and remove directors.

Sunderland’s continuity is the point worth drawing out. Leeds United and Crystal Palace, covered elsewhere on this site, both operate through companies incorporated in the twenty-first century — Leeds United 2007 Limited and CPFC 2010 Limited — because both collapsed and were rebuilt. Sunderland has been through relegations, administration scares and three changes of owner in a decade, and the 1896 company is still the one that holds the club.

Current owners and shareholding structure

Reported holdings:

• Kyril Louis-Dreyfus — around 64%, majority shareholder and chairman
• Juan Sartori — around 36%, board member

Between them that is the entire share capital. Sunderland has no minority investors, no fund and no institutional shareholder — an unusually simple structure for a club that has returned to the Premier League, and the opposite of the four-and-five-layer holding chains this site documents at Chelsea, Evri and Heathrow.

Neither percentage is a Companies House figure. The register names Sunderland Limited and stops.

Key controlling people and entities

Kyril Louis-Dreyfus took control in February 2021 at the age of 23, becoming one of the youngest owners of an English professional club. He is a member of the Louis-Dreyfus family, whose fortune comes from the global commodities trading group; his mother Margarita Louis-Dreyfus controls that business, and his late father Robert Louis-Dreyfus owned Marseille.

Juan Sartori is a Uruguayan businessman and politician who first invested in 2018 under the previous ownership and has remained throughout.

The departures matter as much as the arrivals. Stewart Donald bought the club in 2018, sold control to Louis-Dreyfus in 2021, was reduced to around 19% in June 2022 and has since sold his remaining shares entirely. Charlie Methven‘s 5% was bought out in 2022.

Donald’s exit took six years from first sale to last share — a reminder that “selling a football club” is frequently a staged process rather than a single event, and that a former owner can retain influence long after the headlines say he has gone.

Ownership history

Sunderland was founded in 1879 by a schoolteacher, James Allan, as Sunderland & District Teachers’ Association Football Club, and incorporated as a limited company in 1896.

• 1986–2006 — Bob Murray owns the club and builds the Stadium of Light, opened 1997.
• 2006 — the Drumaville Consortium, fronted by Niall Quinn, takes over.
• 2008–2018 — Ellis Short, the American investor, acquires full control and funds a decade in the Premier League that ends in two successive relegations.
• 2018 — Stewart Donald buys the club after relegation to League One; Juan Sartori invests later that year.
• February 2021 — Kyril Louis-Dreyfus takes control.
• 2022–2024 — Methven and then Donald sell out; Louis-Dreyfus and Sartori hold 100%.

Sunderland’s fall from the Premier League to League One and back is among the sharpest of any club in the modern era, and each stage is legible in who owned it.

Related clubs or investment group

Louis-Dreyfus has no controlling interest in another club, which keeps Sunderland clear of the multi-club ownership rules that forced a sale at Crystal Palace, covered elsewhere on this site. The family’s connection to Marseille ended when that club was sold in 2016 — a family association, not a current ownership link.

The Louis Dreyfus Company, the agricultural commodities group, is a separate business controlled by other members of the family. It does not own Sunderland, and Sunderland is not part of it.

Sartori holds business interests in South America and Europe, none of them clubs under common control with Sunderland.

Sources and verification

The company number, the 12 August 1896 incorporation and the Sunderland Limited PSC entry are Companies House records for 00049116 and can be checked directly.

Two limits. No percentage on this page comes from Companies House — the register names one holding company and does not disclose how its shares are divided, so the 64/36 split rests on the parties’ statements and press reporting. And reports in 2026 of approaches to buy the club are approaches, not transactions: this page does not assert that Sunderland is being sold.

Companies House does not verify most filed information.