In the spirit of what David Conn and pitchinvasion have written, i will start a series of articles detailing who owns the fútbol clubs of the first division of different countries, starting in my home country Colombia.
América de Cali (Cali) - América de Cali was owned by the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers of the Cali cartel, so when they were captured all of their companies, including América entered la lista Clinton (
SDN List) and passed to the ownership of the DNE (Colombia's DEA) and the city of Cali, since then there's been a very real possibility that one of the biggest clubs in Colombia disappears. However, since last year the club left the SDN list, both the club and the city have started selling their shares in search of new owners, and both fans and coproprations can buy them, the city's aim has been for the majority to be bought by the fans, but a sugar conglomerate is rumored to already have bought a great share of them (i'll try to write a longer post on América later on, it's an interesting and sad story).
Atlético Huila (Neiva) - The owner of Hila is Orlando Rojas who is the owner of a licor company, however unlike the rest of clubs the main sponsor of the team is not a company of the owner, instead is a rice company called "Roa" which as far as i can tell has no relation with Mr. Rojas.
Atlético Junior (Barranquilla) - Junior is owned by the Char family, who are the owners of a chain of supermarkets called "Olimpico" and who boast a former minister and a senator among them, unfortunately they became involved in a political scandal in Colombia when a goverment program supported by senator Char was found to have been handing out money to influential people of the atlantic region (Barranquilla is located in this region).
Atlético Nacional (Medellín) - Atlético Nacional is a private organization owned by the organization Ardila Lule, the owner of said organization is the second richest man in the country who also owns Postobón (a beverage company) which as of this year is the main sponsor of both the league and the cup, this has lead to criticism by fans for conflict of interest by Dimayor (colombia's FA) to take decisions that may affect the club.
Chicó FC (Boyaca) - Boyaca Chicó was funded a little over 10 years ago by Eduardo Pimentel a former Millonarios player, whose claim to fame is having the record of red cards in a season, taht should tell you everything you need to know about him as a player, owner and manager, he started the club in the neighborhood of Chicó in Bogota, later moving it to Boyaca a year after gaining promotion to the colombian first division, Pimentel is highly renowed as the most outspoken and critical owner in the country.
Club Cortuluá (Tuluá) - Cortuluá is a nonprofit organization, they were funded in 1967 by a group of friends in Tuluá including former paraguayan player and manager Hernado Acosta, since i can't find evidence to the contrary, the owners seems to be the sons of that group of friends.
Cúcuta Deportivo (Cúcuta) - The owner of Cúcuta Deportivo is Ramiro Suarez, a former mayor of the city who enjoyed an inmense popularity when the team became champions with him in office, however since he left office there has been growing interest by the fans to make the club supporter owned.
Deportes Quindio (Armenia) - Hernando Angel is from Cali and he owns Quindio, that doesn't sit well with a lot of people from the city of Armenia as they want to see someone from the region to take over the club, in 2006 he tried to sell but nobody met his asking price so he kept it, as of saturday he is part of the Executive Board of Dimayor.
Deportes Tolima (Ibague) - Tolima is owned by senator Gabriel Camargo, whose main contribution to the league has been threatening to not field a team every couple of years unless the Dimayor helps him with the expenses, so far tolima has always fielded a team.
Deportivo Cali (Cali) - Deortivo Cali is a supporter owned club with general elections to choose the president of the institution and is also the first professional club in Colombia to own their stadium, the rest of stadium are owned by the town where they play.
Deportivo Independiente Medellin (Medellin) - Atlético Nacional biggest rivals are owned by a gorup of people with strong ties to them, notables among that group are Francisco Maturana who won the Libertadores with Nacional in 1989, and Juan Jose Pelaez who was second in the libertadores with Nacional in the 1995 edition, both of them were also managers for DIM before becoming owners, the current manager is Leonel Alvarez who score the last penalty kick for Nacional in the final of the libertadores in 1989. The former owner of the club was Jose Rodrigo Tamayo who is now in jail along with 11 former directors of the club, however the colombian justice has not taken actions against the club itself, as they were captured 5 years after leaving the club.
Deportivo Pereira (Pereira) - Corpereira is a nonprofit organization that owns Deportivo Pereira, i couldn't find anything in who are the shareholders of Corpereira.
Envigado F.C. (Envigado) - Envigado majority shareholder was Gustavo Upegui until he was killed by hitmen in 2006, he was linked to paramilitary groups but nothing was proved, so since then his family took care of the club with his son Juan Pablo Upegui being the Director of the club, Envigado is also partially owned by the city of Envigado with 25%-30% of the shares, so the club is especially focused on the development of the youth of the city.
Equidad FC (Bogota) - La Equidad comes from the same background as Chicó, as they started out very recently in Bogota playing in neighborhood tournaments before becoing professional, unlike Chicó La Equidad stay in bogota after making to the first division, which has made them one of the teams with less fans in the country, hawever the owner of the club don't seem to mind losing money in the team as long as it stays in the first division, becouse Equidad FC is owned by Seguros la Equidad, an insurance company, that has stated that the publicity coming from havin a team in the top flight more than offsets the loses that comes from owning the club, think Red Bull in a much much smaller scale.
Independiente Santa Fé (Bogota) - Santa Fé's ownership situation is a little confusing as the man that was supposed to be the majorityt shareholder, Armando Farfán, has quit the institution and no longer appears as the owner, so for what i can understand of the situation, Santa Fé doesn't have a majority shareholder, instead they are a private joint stock company.
Millonarios (Bogota) - Just like América, Millonarios has 13 first division tiltes, and just like América they got involved with drug dealers, however Millonarios 27% of shares were given to the DNE making them the institution with the largest share at the club, and has spent the last 4 years under they control, in that span they uncover the debt hidden under the money laundering. Millonarios almost was liquidated at the start of the year for a debt of 27000 million pesos (around 14 million dollars) but they sold properties in order to avoid it.
Once Caldas (Manizales) - Once Caldas is also owned by a nonprofit organization called Corporacion Deportiva Once Caldas, the most notable of the shareholders is Jairo Quintero who was the president of the club when the club won the Libertadores in 2004, he was elected for the chamber of representatives in the last parlamentary elections.
Real Cartagena (Cartagena) - Real Cartagena is run by the Promotora de Deporte de Cartagena de Indias funded by all of the members of the current board of directors of the club, the description for most of them in internet is fútbol entrepeneurs, so take that description as you want.
Those are the 18 clubs in Colombia's first division, a lot of different backgrounds and unfortunately pretty much every club has rumors of ties with drug dealers (there's a third team in the hands of the DNE: Unión Magdalena of the second division), leaving a lot to be desired about the regulation in Colombia. Any corrections please tell me, as some of this are based more in word of mouth than i'll like it to be.
Next up will be either Mexico or Argentina depending in how easy is to gather the information.
