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The Guardian
27-07-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Spain have the shapes, patterns and craft but their one weakness cost them
Aitana Bonmatí could not even manage a smile. The walk to the podium through an England guard of honour that, while generous in its applause, could still barely hold in its euphoria must have felt several miles long. She had just been named player of the tournament and it was just about possible to detect a bowing of the head as the award was announced. There were photos to pose for after taking receipt of the trophy and after what had just passed there was simply no point in putting on an act. In those moments before Bonmatí shuffled up for her prize, Spain's players stood motionless, wordless, in the penalty area that had eventually sealed their fate. How had it come to this? It had been billed as the rubber-stamping of a golden generation; the night when the world's best team would follow success by reeling off more of the same. Everyone knew that Spain routinely performed at a level several notches higher than the rest. There was nothing to do beyond fold the arms and stare blankly. Maybe there had been something in the Basel water. Earlier in the day, at a Uefa-run forum exploring a range of angles around the women's game, predictions for the final were sought from several of the speakers and none of them went for the bleeding obvious. England would win, Jill Ellis and Camille Abily claimed. There was no persuading Emma Hayes to commit in either direction. At the time it felt like wishful thinking; a conscious effort to suggest jeopardy where little appeared. But perhaps the experts really did know something, because every chink of weakness Spain have showed this summer ultimately cost them here. In the end their cutting edge deserted them when it mattered most, and for those looking closely enough the signs had been there. It had required a piece of Bonmatí magic to see off Germany, who in turn exposed them down the flanks on numerous occasions, in their semi-final after several chances were spurned. The taps had certainly begun to trickle after a flow of 16 goals in their opening four games. Against England, too, they could have won several times over. By the second period of extra time the Lionesses could, in large part, barely run after being put through a third 120-minute effort in 10 days. Meanwhile Ona Batlle, perhaps the best player on the pitch, was making her latest underlapping run to the byline from right-back and watching her cross rebound out for another corner. Spain had the shapes, the patterns, the running power and the craft, but none of the certainty that imbues serial winners. They will surely rue not adding to Mariona Caldentey's opening goal, thundered in after characteristically prodigious work from Batlle, in the utterly dominant half-hour that followed. Spain had worked England at will during that spell, Bonmatí and Alexia Putellas pulling every string, but never quite created the sure thing that would see them home. They soon learned it was too early to kill the game through possession and Alessio Russo's equaliser suggested a team taking things a touch too easily. Spain had been their tenacious selves off the ball for most of the night, Patri Guijarro leaving Georgia Stanway in an early heap to demonstrate guts should not be enough for England this time. But their lack of pressure was conspicuous when a simple move through the thirds, its angles hardly dizzying, ended with a Chloe Kelly's perfect cross and it was a moment of inattention that proved critical. There will also be regret that Esther González, another rueful award winner when she received the golden boot, did not score after the group stage. She had early glimpses, while the substitutes Clàudia Pina and Salma Paralluelo had their own openings much later, but England's blend of doggedness and weary, gnarled self-assurance was a barrier too far. Sign up to Moving the Goalposts No topic is too small or too big for us to cover as we deliver a twice-weekly roundup of the wonderful world of women's football after newsletter promotion The parallels with Arsenal's Champions League final win against Barcelona will, given the personnel on show, come freely. Both times the overwhelming favourites were sucker-punched by teams who had earned their moment, formed more than the sum of their parts and prodded at the soft spots. But it would be remiss to see a wider pattern here; wrong to talk of failure or of a system short of everything it is cracked up to be. A perverse joy of a team this gifted is the contortions it inspires in others; the ends and compromises foes reach in order to scramble close to their plane. England had to make plenty of those and, as Montse Tomé and Sarina Wiegman embraced at the end, the thought occurred that Spain's most formidable adversary had been stalking the technical area. Spain will be back and so will Bonmatí, whose missed penalty was a key moment in another wobbly shootout. Incomprehensible moments such as that, anomalies so rare that their significance feels grossly unjust, cannot tar a legacy that has only been strengthened by her remarkable response to viral meningitis. Bonmatí teased the heartstrings further by asking for forgiveness on Spanish television; Spain may have been reined in but apologies are entirely unnecessary.
The Guardian
24-07-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
NWSL investigation finds San Diego Wave ‘could have done more' to address assault allegation
An investigation commissioned by the National Women's Soccer League found that the San Diego Wave front office 'could have done more' to address a sexual assault allegation from a member of the club's staff, but ultimately found no specific issue with how the claim was handled because the alleged victim did not use the term 'sexual' when describing her experience. The finding is contained in a report summarizing the investigation, which had not previously been made public but was obtained by the Guardian US. The investigation, conducted by Connecticut-based law firm Finn, Dixon, and Herling, also looked at how the team's front office handled several other workplace complaints. Its conclusions exemplify some of the bureaucratic and legal obstacles many employees face when attempting to report sexual assault in the workplace. These can include systemic ineffective reporting mechanisms and procedural complexities while individuals can experience retraumatization, minimization, subsequent poor workplace performance, and isolation. Although not stated in the report, the investigation shows how the club lacked an accepted trauma-informed response to investigating or receiving complaints of sexual assault. San Diego Wave made their NWSL debut in 2022 with an all-star cast that included former US women's national team head coach Jill Ellis as president, former England international Casey Stoney as coach, and star forward Alex Morgan on the field. Off the field, however, things were not so stellar. The investigation found that a senior Wave staff member reported to her manager in October 2023 that she had been 'traumatized' by a male co-worker. She also stated at that time she did not want lawyers, San Diego Wave, or NWSL to pursue an investigation into any events that had been responsible for that trauma. During a subsequent meeting with a Wave human resources manager the woman did not identify the co-worker who allegedly assaulted her, did not reveal details of the alleged 'traumatization', and did not explicitly describe sexual assault or sexual misconduct. The woman who made the allegations was subsequently fired by San Diego Wave after her work performance declined and was told by the club to make a worker's compensation claim when more details of the assault became known to the club after her departure. The Guardian understands the NWSL investigation was triggered after reports were received from San Diego Wave employees via an anonymous tip line – a response that is in line with league policy. The NWSL commissioned the investigation to determine whether a report of sexual assault was ignored by Wave management and whether any of the club's potential inaction had broken the NWSL Policy to Prevent and Eliminate Workplace Discrimination, Harassment, and Bullying – not to investigate any actual claims themselves. According to the investigation, the Wave did not fail to respond to a report of a sexual assault but 'the Wave could have done more to press the complainant for more information' on the circumstances behind it. It is understood that the investigators suggested to at least one of the women they interviewed to consider pursuing other avenues for their complaints if they were dissatisfied with the investigation's conclusions In October 2024, almost six months after the completion of the investigation, five former San Diego Wave employees filed a lawsuit against both the NWSL and San Diego Wave. Later that month, 'Jane Doe 2' joined the suit with allegations of sexual harassment by the same Wave staffer accused of sexual assault. That ongoing suit contains multiple allegations related to the historic working environment at San Diego Wave in addition to the sexual assault and sexual harassment claims. The plaintiffs include Brittany Alvarado, a former videographer for San Diego Wave, who made headlines in 2024 when she posted on social media that the 'NWSL must take immediate action to remove Jill Ellis from both the San Diego Wave and the league entirely.' Ellis was Wave president at the time and had a hands-on role in managing the club. Ellis has since departed San Diego to take a senior role at Fifa as its chief football officer. Ellis is not a defendant in the lawsuit but is referenced on multiple occasions within the filing. She has separately filed a defamation lawsuit against Alvarado for the social media post made in 2024. Sign up to Moving the Goalposts No topic is too small or too big for us to cover as we deliver a twice-weekly roundup of the wonderful world of women's football after newsletter promotion 'Jane Doe 1' is described in the suit as having held a senior management position with San Diego Wave with extensive experience in the sports industry. The suit alleges that a co-worker invited Jane Doe 1, who had recently moved to San Diego to work for the Wave, for a night out in the city that led to 'inappropriate activities including a game of 'Sexy Jenga' that led to him pressuring her into non-consensual sexual acts'. Jane Doe 1 alleges that later at her apartment, while she was drunk, she was pressured into 'sexual activity that she explicitly stated she did not consent to' that resulted in 'significant injury'. Jane Doe 1 describes a subsequent 'hostile work environment' and criticism from her manager that ultimately led to her termination by Wave in late 2023. After her departure, Jane Doe 1 alleges she asked the club how to report an assault and was told to complete a workers' compensation form. 'Jane Doe 2' alleges she was sexually harassed by the same San Diego Wave employee. She worked part-time with shifts scheduled by the employee who sent her non-work related messages via Snapchat, according to the claim. Jane Doe 2 informed the employee she was not interested in him romantically but the messages became increasingly sexual in nature including an unsolicited image of his penis, according to the lawsuit. Jane Doe 2 claims she was then scheduled for fewer work shifts by the Wave employee to a point where she was not rehired by San Diego Wave because she had not met the minimum shift requirements set by the club. In July 2024, Jane Doe 2 met socially with a Wave employee who told her that her experience was not unique and encouraged her to speak with Wave. The employee accused of assault and harassment has since left the club. San Diego Wave gained new owners in 2024 and while some staff from the period described in the lawsuit have left the organization several remain. Ellis' defamation lawsuit against Alvarado is set to be heard later this year. The NWSL did not respond to specific questions regarding the San Diego Wave investigation but a league spokesperson said in an emailed statement to the Guardian that: 'The safety, health, and well-being of everyone associated with the NWSL is our highest priority. We take serious [sic] any and every report of potential misconduct, hire qualified independent investigators to review those allegations thoroughly, and act when allegations are supported by the facts uncovered. We will not comment specifically about an active legal matter.' That statement has been previously issued to other media organizations that have requested comment on the issue over the past year. Finn, Dixon, and Herling did not respond to a request for comment on the investigation. San Diego Wave did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
NBC News
15-06-2025
- Business
- NBC News
Winning FIFA's Club World Cup earns more than bragging rights. $1 billion is on the line
The debate that roiled soccer fans for generations was also its most unanswerable: Which clubs, on which continents, played the best soccer? Unlike national teams that played one another in the quadrennial World Cup, there was rarely overlap between the top teams in Europe and South America, or North America, except for summertime 'friendly' competitions. The FIFA Club World Cup, which begins this weekend across the U.S. and runs through the final on July 13, expanded its previously smaller format in an attempt to provide an answer. It now features 32 teams, from six continents, playing for a total prize money pool of $1 billion. 'This is for bragging rights,' said Jill Ellis, the chief football officer of FIFA, soccer's global governing body, and a former World Cup-winning coach of the U.S. women's national team. 'Prize money is a part of it. But most importantly, this is a chance to be the first-ever club world champion.' As the tournament opens, however, the money is more than just a small part of it. Falling ticket prices, and accusations from Major League Soccer players that the league had agreed to participate in a 'cash grab' that unfairly compensates them, have raised the question of just how much buy-in the new tournament has from U.S. audiences and players. When tickets for Saturday's opening game in Florida between Inter Miami, featuring Lionel Messi, and Egyptian side Al Ahly went on sale in December through Ticketmaster, an upper-deck ticket cost $379 at the time. This week, similar ticket were on sale for as low as $116. According to NPR, FIFA has worked with a local Florida college to offer four complimentary tickets for students who pay for a single $20 ticket. Attendance for the opening game was announceed at 60,927, slightly shy of the stadium's capacity of 65,000. Bayern Munich, the perennial German champion, listed lower-bowl tickets for its opener Sunday in Cincinnati for as low as $107 when its tickets went on sale in December; on Saturday, tickets were being resold on Stubhub for half that. For as little as $8, fans can watch a June 25 game between the Japanese Urawa Red Diamonds and Mexican side C.F. Monterrey. "We anticipace great attendances and electric atmospheres at its inaugural edition, with excitement growing with every round of matches and the tournament ultimately standing as the undisputed pinnacle of club world football," FIFA said, in part of a statement sent to NBC News. "The appetite speaks for itself: fans from over 130 countries have already purchased tickets. The top 10 markets are led by the United States, followed by Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Canada, France, Japan, Switzerland, Germany and Portugal — a clear sign of global anticipation and reach." As a new tournament, the Club World Cup cannot offer much in the way of prestige or history. Instead, it has offered a historic amount of prize money, with $525 million of the total $1 billion distributed to teams on a sliding scale, guaranteed, just for making the 32-team field. At the top, brand-name European teams such as Real Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain will earn between $12.8 and $38 million; at the bottom, New Zealand's Auckland City FC will earn $3.5 million. The remaining $475 million of the billion-dollar pool will then be determined by teams' performances; making the round of 16 earns each club $7.5 million, with quarterfinalists $13.1 million, and increasing up to the final. The winner can ultimately rake in up to $125 million, all of which adds up to much more than bragging rights — which has left Major League Soccer players asking why their cut from the windfall isn't greater. Before a June 1 match players from the Seattle Sounders donned white T-shirts during warmups that read 'Club World Ca$h Grab,' with an image of the Mr. Monopoly character wearing an 'MLS' top hat and holding a pouch reading 'FIFA.' The protest led the team's owner to berate players afterward, according to the Seattle Times. The three teams in the Club World Cup field from Major League Soccer — Seattle, Inter Miami and Los Angeles Football Club — are each guaranteed $9.55 million for participating, before any bonuses are earned for performance. Players' earnings from participation or performance in a 'compulsory tournament or noncompulsory tournament' is capped at $1 million, per the terms of the league's collective bargaining agreement. The players' union has continued to push publicly to increase' players stake from what is currently about a 90/10 split, and has noted that before a major tournament in 2024, the players and MLS renegotiated the prize money distribution before ultimately landing at a 50-50 split. In a statement to NBC News on Thursday, MLS said that it has 'agreed to voluntarily provide additional performance-based compensation to players from the three participating clubs.' That proposal, the league said, would allocate 20% of all prize money earned from the group stage onward to players. 'If an MLS club wins the Club World Cup, its players would collectively receive more than $24 million in performance bonuses,' the statement read. 'MLS club owners believe performance-based incentives are appropriate given the expanded format and increased prize pool for the Club World Cup. The League values the continued dedication and commitment of its players and looks forward to supporting them as they represent their clubs — and Major League Soccer — on the global stage this summer.' On June 8, the players association posted on X that it was 'deeply disappointed' by the league's proposal. 'The timing, substance and retaliatory nature of the proposal sends a clear message: MLS does not respect or value players' efforts with regard to this tournament,' the post read. 'Although not surprised, the players and the MLSPA are deeply disappointed by this message." 'I don't think sitting out is an option,' Seattle midfielder Albert Rusnak told reporters Friday. 'Just because again, that inside what we have as athletes and winners and want to go out there and win and prove the people wrong whether we're talking about the bonuses or the people not believing we can do anything.' Ellis, who works for FIFA, believes the prospect of playing on that global stage will lead to strong competition from players. 'I think the U.S. players, if you were to say to anyone, 'Do you want to play in this tournament?' Sure, do they want to be paid as much as probably — I mean, that's within their own league and within the MLS to determine that, because obviously, unlike a lot of leagues around the world, MLS has a salary cap,' Ellis said. 'So there's certain different structures and CBA, and so that's internal to that. 'But I think in terms of what I and my experience in working with some of the best players in the world, elite players want to play against elite players. They want to test themselves, prove themselves, and they want to compete. ... Listen, at the end of the day it's a choice, but I think players will want to play in this event. '... In American sports when we win, when the Major League Baseball team wins, they're world champions. When the NFL team (wins) — the title is world champions. Well, yes, but they're playing against American teams. This is truly a world championship. This is the best clubs in the world.'
Forbes
11-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How This Buyout Pioneer Built A Fortune From Private Equity To Soccer
Lauren Leichtman wasn't always into soccer. That changed after she watched the 1999 Women's World Cup final at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, where Brandi Chastain scored the winning penalty kick for the U.S. women's national team—and her celebration, which included falling to her knees and ripping off her shirt, made front pages across the country. Over the following years, she and her husband, Arthur Levine, who lived in Los Angeles, would often drive past the UCLA soccer field while picking up their daughter from school. They soon started donating to the university—including helping rebuild the soccer team's locker room—and struck up a friendship with the team's coach, Jill Ellis, who would go on to coach and win two World Cups with the U.S. women's team and then served as president of the National Women's Soccer League's San Diego Wave from 2021 until last December. Leichtman's growing passion for soccer culminated in the couple's purchase of the Wave for an estimated $113 million last October. "We started looking at buying a women's sports team about three years ago," she says in a video interview from her home in Miami, with framed photos of her family displayed on a bookshelf behind her. 'It's something that interests us, it's a good investment, and it's something we can do together as a family.' Two of her three kids are involved in supporting the team's management, and Leichtman and her family attend as many games as possible. In May, Alex Morgan—who won two World Cups with the U.S. women's national team and also captained the Wave until her retirement in 2024— joined the Wave as a minority investor. Leichtman knows a thing or two about good investments. In 1984, she cofounded Beverly Hills, California-based private equity firm Levine Leichtman Capital Partners (LLCP) alongside her husband, investing in small businesses that needed money and targeting successful founders who had built companies with $30 million to $40 million in revenues. Over the next 40 years, the couple built their small wife-and-husband shop into an $11 billion (assets) buyout firm with blue-chip investors ranging from the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) to publicly-traded asset manager Hamilton Lane. While they stepped back from day-to-day management in 2020, Leichtman and Levine still own the firm, which makes up the bulk of their fortunes. Add in their private investments, real estate and the San Diego Wave—the team is now worth an estimated $165 million—and Forbes estimates that Leichtman and Levine are each worth $1.3 billion, ranking Leichtman 26th on Forbes' 2025 list of America's Richest Self-Made Women. Throughout the years, Leichtman and Levine have stuck to what they know best. They invest in businesses with positive cash flow. They look for experienced entrepreneurs and management teams who want to stay on to run the company and keep an ownership stake after the deal is closed. And they use a combination of debt and equity to ensure regular cash payments from interest on the debt. "We created this strategy when we were doing this to find a way to fund our lifestyle without investing all our capital as equity," recalls Leichtman. 'We didn't have any other money, so we came up with the idea of investing a portion of the capital as a debt security and another portion as equity. At the time it was two-thirds debt and one-third equity, and the debt got a 13% cash coupon which was paid to us every month.' Since they started raising money with outside investors in 1994, LLCP's funds have invested in more than 100 companies and sold investments in 80 of them for a total of $11.5 billion, compared to an aggregate investment cost in those sold businesses of $4.8 billion. That nearly 2.4 multiple of invested capital rivals those of private equity heavyweights from Blackstone to KKR. LLCP now has eight offices in five countries, including four in the U.S., and invests across three broad categories: middle-market U.S. companies with revenues from $50 million to $250 million, smaller U.S. firms with less than $50 million in revenues, and foreign—mostly European—companies with revenues around $30 million or higher. Some of its best-known investments include restaurant franchises Tropical Smoothie Cafe and Wetzel's Pretzels, but the firm has also scored big exits in industries ranging from pipe fittings to air quality control. "They've got a great eye for finding these specific niche businesses that have a ton of potential and then matching up appropriate management to go do it," says Harley Kaplan, CEO of aerospace and defense component firm The Thermal Group, who previously led two LLCP portfolio companies as CEO. Another key to their success has been their partnership. Levine, a former accountant, sourced deals and focused on their numbers, while Leichtman brought her expertise in law to help management at portfolio companies grow their business. "It's that combination of skills. They complement each other," says Kevin Fritzmeyer, who ran FlexXray, a company that provides x-ray inspection services for food safety, when it was owned by LLCP before it was sold in 2021. "Arthur's a salesman, he is going to be out front and getting things done, and [Lauren] is making sure that things stay between the lines." From their wedding in 1979 to running the firm together and then investing through their family office, it's been a successful partnership. Says Levine of his wife's strengths: "It's her judgment and her rationality and calmness. I can get very excited about doing a deal and she doesn't. And that's why it's very important." She jumps in to add, "Arthur's extremely good on the numbers side. He can really see things that I just don't see, but it all has to work together. I'm seeing other things that he doesn't see." Alex Morgan retired as the San Diego Wave's captain in October, the same month that Leichtman and Levine bought the team. Seven months later, Morgan joined as a minority investor. The team's value has already increased by 46%. "They're so undervalued, it seemed like a no brainer," says Levine of the investment. Leichtman was born in Los Angeles in 1949. Her parents divorced when she was three years old. Her mother, a housewife, later remarried and Leichtman was raised in a mixed family of five stepchildren. When she was 10 years old, Leichtman remembers her mother telling her that she regretted never pursuing a career of her own. "She was kind of trapped in, being supported by her husband," says Leichtman. "She had two kids when she divorced my father. So I just said, 'that's not going to happen to me. I have to be able to support myself.'" She started working odd jobs at 14 and continued through her undergraduate years at the University of Colorado and Cal State Northridge, working as a file clerk, bank teller, waitress and cashier. In college, she wanted to become a psychologist, so after graduation she spent nine months as a residential counselor at a treatment center for emotionally disturbed kids, before moving to a community mental health center in South Central L.A. for six months. But Leichtman realized she wanted to pursue another career, so she applied to graduate school for law and architecture, and got into both. 'I was not that great with numbers, believe it or not," she says, laughing. "I was afraid if I built something it might fall down, so I went to law school. Basically, it was a crapshoot." While she was studying law at Southwestern Law School in L.A., she met her future husband, Levine, at the University of California, Los Angeles' law library in 1975. At the time, the New York state native was working as an accountant and attending night classes for an MBA at UCLA. "I did not want to get married until I knew I could support myself," says Leichtman. "He kept asking me, I kept saying no. Finally he gave up and said, 'just let me know when you want to get married.' Three months later, we got married." After marrying in 1979, the couple then decamped for New York, where Leichtman got an advanced degree in securities law—an L.L.M—at Columbia and then worked in the Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement division. Levine—who had by then gotten his MBA—attended law school at Columbia, but he kept traveling back-and-forth between L.A. and New York for his work at radio network Westwood One, which he had cofounded three years earlier. The firm was growing rapidly following then-President Ronald Reagan's deregulation of the radio industry in 1981, the same year the couple's first son was born in New York. In 1982, the pair moved back to L.A. so that Levine could focus on Westwood One. Leichtman got a job at a law firm in Los Angeles, but after a year there she decided to leave. 'It was a horrible working environment for a woman," she says. "I had a little boy, I wanted to work part-time. They didn't want me to. It was just not good in a hundred ways." She spent a year and a half practicing law on her own, helping lawyers with securities cases and depositions. Then in 1984, after helping take Westwood One public as its president, Levine decided to sell his shares in the firm and leave the company. (Between 1984 and 1986, he sold an estimated $10 million of stock, according to industry magazine Channels: The Business of Communications.) The couple then decided to start investing their money. 'I said, 'What are we going to do? He said, 'I don't know. We're going to figure it out as we go along.' And that's basically what we did," says Leichtman. Adds Levine: "We had no partners, no management fees, no nothing, just ourselves.' Their first investment was in IDB Communications, a satellite transmission business that did live transmission of concerts around the world. When they sold it in 1987, they netted 150 times their initial investment. "I said, 'hey, this is an easy business, just give a guy money,'" says Levine, chuckling. "Then the stock market crashed.' Their strategy of structured equity—a combination of debt and shares—was attractive to cash-strapped companies during the crisis. Business owners at the time, especially in hard-hit California, didn't want to give up too much equity, but needed financing. Their next deal was for software and video game developer The Software Toolworks, then chaired by radio announcer and TV host Les Crane, which produced the popular chess computer game Chessmaster 2000. "They didn't want to sell equity. They really needed help. What we were doing was helping them professionalize their companies," says Leichtman. 'If they went to a private equity firm at that time for any kind of help, the firm would say, 'okay, we want 90% of your business.' So we were able to take 25% of the business and leave them with the rest. That's how we came up with the structure." Photos, From Left: Daniela Amodei, Selena Gomez, Gwynne Shotwell. Illustration by Ben Kirchner for Forbes In those early years, Leichtman sometimes faced pushback in an industry where few women rise to the top. "Initially, we'd have meetings with people who would come in and they would wait for Arthur to come in. Finally, a couple of years in, I just said, 'Look, Arthur's not coming in, so if you're interested in us investing in you, you should talk to me. Otherwise we can end the meeting right now,'" recalls Leichtman. As the firm grew in size and prominence and later raised funds from institutional investors, Leichtman's track record spoke for itself. "After that, it just got easier and easier." By the early 1990s, they had made back 15 to 16 times their money on the seven deals they had invested in together. But they also started running into a problem where the companies they were investing in needed more capital than they could commit—and Levine was against bringing in third-party investors. Then one night in 1993, while watching TV, they saw an announcement from the treasurer of California looking for companies willing to invest in the state. Levine and Leichtman reached out to her and applied to CalPERS, the largest public pension fund in the U.S., for seed money to expand their firm and invest in more companies in the state. "We asked CalPERS for $100 million, thinking they'd give us $10 million to $25 million," recalls Levine. Adds Leichtman: "After nine months of due diligence, they gave us the hundred." After their first fund did well, the couple raised a second fund in 1998, bringing in outside investors beyond CalPERS, including pension funds in Arizona and New York. Through downturns like the bursting of the dotcom bubble in the early 2000s, the couple honed in on 'recession-proof' businesses that returned a profit even during tough economic times. "Our ability to grow our private equity firm had two components. One is our ability to return cash to our partners,' says Leichtman, recalling fundraising meetings in the early 2000s when she would often meet small pension funds in New England who told her that LLCP was the only firm returning any cash to them, thanks to its strategy of combining equity investments with debt. 'Also, our ability to compete with private equity funds and offering these new entrepreneurs who had just some sweat equity the ability to really have a meaningful piece of the company." The deals came fast, with LLCP making successful exits from companies as diverse as fast-food franchise Quiznos and oil & gas pipe fittings manufacturer Hackney Ladish, which they sold for more than three times their investment in December 2008. That same year the firm raised its first billion dollar fund. Since handing the reins of the firm to co-managing partners Michael Weinberg and Matthew Frankel in 2020, Leichtman and Levine have turned their focus to succession planning and managing their family office. Leichtman runs the San Diego wave as the team's governor and has also expanded the couple's philanthropy, focused in southern California. Among her most notable gifts is a $1 million pledge to Southwestern Law School, Leichtman's alma mater, to provide financial assistance for students interested in business and provide them with a mentor at LLCP. The pair have also donated to UCLA's soccer program and established two endowed chairs at the university—one for women's health research and the other for astrophysics, held by Andrea Ghez, who won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics. Leichtman and Levine haven't lost their eye for investing. They've put their own money into AI and robotics companies that are doing "extremely well," per Levine. But after four decades in private equity, Leichtman is enjoying bringing the couple's three kids into the family office and the family's charitable foundation. That's where she believes she can make a greater difference with the fruits of her success. "We've been so fortunate. One of the first things we did was to call Planned Parenthood and UCLA and give them a million dollars to build a building they had asked for,' says Leichtman. 'I just feel like we don't need to buy another car or another painting. These are things that are really, really important."
Daily Mail
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Megan Rapinoe opens up on life with 'super gay' USA team that trolled Donald Trump in 2019
Megan Rapinoe has opened up on life with her 'super gay' 2019 USA World Cup-winning team as she commemorated pride month with her partner Sue Bird. Speaking on her 'A Touch More' podcast, Bird asked Rapinoe how it felt to play soccer during pride month, which prompted her to discuss her World Cup glory from six years ago. 'Our team was super gay in 2019,' Rapinoe said. 'A lot of us were out, a lot of our fans were gay, a lot of the other players were gay. 'First and easiest thing to ensure you have is gay players on our team.' Rapinoe was one of five players who had come out alongside their coach, Jill Ellis, Her recent comments echo what Rapinoe said at the time when the USA went on to win a second straight World Cup title. After USA beat France in the quarterfinals, Rapinoe said: 'Go gays! 'You can't win a championship without gays on your team - it's never been done before, ever. That's science, right there! 'For me, to be gay and fabulous, during Pride month at the World Cup, is nice.' Rapinoe also underlined her outspoken reputation at that tournament as she took shots at president Donald Trump during his first term in office. She said she is 'not going to the f***ing White House' if the US won the tournament due to her disdain for Trump and urged her teammates to consider being associated with him. 'I stand by the comments that I made about not wanting to go to the White House with exception of the expletive,' Rapinoe said during the tournament. 'Considering how much time and effort and pride we take in the platform we have, using it for good and leaving the game in a better place and hopefully the world in a better place, I don't think I would want to go. 'I would encourage my teammates to think hard about lending that platform or having that co-opted by an administration that doesn't feel the same way and doesn't fight for the same things we fight for.' Rapinoe said she would not visit the White House while Trump was serving as president Trump responded by saying on X: 'I am a big fan of the American Team, and Women's Soccer, but Megan should WIN first before she TALKS! Finish the job! 'We haven't yet invited Megan or the team, but I am now inviting the TEAM, win or lose. 'Megan should never disrespect our Country, the White House, or our Flag, especially since so much has been done for her & the team. Be proud of the Flag that you wear. The USA is doing GREAT!'
