Footballco a private equity-backed football news site and owner of Goal. Com, has bought CalcioMercato.com, a major provider of soccer news in Italy. CalcioMercato.com was founded by its main owner and publisher Carlo Pallavicino. The price for the deal was thought to be more than $10m and the new site adds 12m monthly users to join the existing 400m monthly users attracted by Goal.com and other sites operated by Footballco across 16 countries in 17 languages.
Goal.com claims to have had traffic totalling 100m during the Euro 2020 and Copa America tournaments. It plans to use the new acquisition to expand in other European markets such as France and Spain, with the Middle East also looking attractive ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Expansion into e-commerce is also a key goal for the company. Footballco is owned by Integrated Media.
