A US sports club and real estate investor has taken over Melbourne’s Western United Football Club—and its mammoth stadium precinct plans.
KAM Melbourne, a subsidiary of KAM Sports, owned by the billionaire Kaminski family, has acquired a controlling stake in WUFC, as well as its property developer parent company, Western Melbourne Group (WMG).
According to media reports, the family is acquiring more than 65 per cent of WMG with an investment of about $100 million. There was scope to increase that stake, reports said.
WMG and a consortium of investors launched a major stadium-centric precinct masterplan in 2019 for a 62.5ha site at Tarneit, 25km from the Melbourne CBD.
In 2024, the group added meat to the bones of the project, revealing a mixed-use suburb in public-private partnership with the Wyndham City Council, the WUFC itself, YourLand Developments and Johnson Controls.
WMG detailed four distinct precincts in the $2-billion masterplan; high-performance sports, stadium, residential, and commercial and mixed-use.
Alongside the 15,000-seater, multi-sports stadium would sit a 5000-capacity secondary stadium, as well as more than 900 homes.
A staged development over 10 years was detailed but progress has been slow.
Former Victorian planning minister Richard Wynne approved a key planning amendment to move the project ahead in 2021, however, only the Ironbark Fields training base has been built.
A media statement from WMG said the KAM team had “experience in portfolio asset management including the financing, structuring and management of large residential and commercial real estate developments in the US and Europe”.
KAM, led by chairman and co-founder Maciek Kaminski and his son, chief executive Mikhail Kaminski, would “work together with WMG partners and stakeholders to make the vision of WMG a reality”, it said.
The deal was KAM’s first investment in Australia, Maciek Kaminski said.
“Having met with Wyndham Council and other project partners over the last 12 months and the local community, it’s clear there’s a strong desire to get on with the next phase of the exciting project and get it done,” Kaminski said.
The father-and-son Kaminski team operate across the globe and have in recent years been in negotiations to buy English Premier League Club Everton and Belgium Football Club KV Kortrijk.
The Australian deal includes A-League Men’s Champions WUFC, as well as the women’s team, who were grand finalists at the 2022-23 A-League Championships in the side’s inaugural year.
But the soccer club has struggled financially in recent months, with associated companies reportedly being wound up by creditors.
It is hoped the new deal will progress the Wyndham stadium precinct, allowing it to join the ranks of other sports-focused lifestyle precincts cropping up across the globe.
Australia has been taking on the trend, with billionaire Valarie “Larry” Kestelman plotting a $500-million Hobart sports and tourism precinct and the Cronulla Sharks nearing completion on a 898 home project surrounding its stadium.
