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The owners of the Lotus F1 racing team are branching into the hazardous financial world of football by setting up an investment vehicle to spend as much as ?500m on ?the beautiful game?.

Gerard Lopez and Eric Lux, whose private equity fund Genii Capital acquired the old Renault F1 team in 2009, have set their sights on about five second-tier European clubs as well as a dozen football-related businesses such as player agencies, academies and media rights management companies.

The vehicle will be managed by Genii?s sister company Mangrove Capital Partners, an early investor in Skype.

It has recruited Ferran Soriano and Marc Ingla, both of whom were senior executives at FC Barcelona during its triumphant run over recent years .

Despite the football industry?s capacity to burn through investors? money, Genii has been attracted by the sport?s large revenues, global reach and the potential for better management and bigger profits at smaller clubs.

?[Big-name clubs] are inherently risky and very difficult to turn around,? Mr Lopez said. ?We would rather take a club of ?40m turnover than one with high aspirations and huge debt.?

Genii is an unusual F1 team owner, as it admits its primary purpose is to use Grand Prix weekends as a networking opportunities to broker deals in real estate, energy, new media, technology and the automotive industry.

The Lotus team made pre-tax losses last year of ?21m and lost its title sponsor. It has since signed new sponsorship deals with Unilever and Microsoft and Mr Lopez said the team was on track to break even.

The team is also competing strongly. Going into this weekend?s British Grand Prix, Lotus stands third in the constructor?s world championship standings.

Mr Lopez insisted the football investment vehicle would not become another networking platform. ?This is not about inviting people to games,? he said. ?This is about investing in businesses that support and service clubs and about buying clubs and making them profitable. They need to be just better managed.?

He declined to identify which clubs Mangrove would target or the size of the vehicle, although it is understood investors would be tapped for up to ?500m.

To navigate Uefa?s restrictions on investors owning more than one club, Mangrove will only buy clubs in different leagues. A problem could still arise if their clubs were to become successful enough to compete against each other in Uefa competitions.

Posted By: Trent_Canary, Jul 10, 23:40:42