THE NETWORK
Fayza Lamari controls strategy. Delphine Van Herdeyn controls the legal architecture. Ziad Hammoud controls execution. As CEO of Interconnected Ventures — the holding structure behind Coalition Capital — he is the operational layer that makes Mbappe’s investment ambitions executable. His background, his specific mandate, and the decisions that have flowed from his appointment tell a more precise story about how the empire is built than any headline about a new portfolio company.
Who Ziad Hammoud is — and what his role actually covers
Hammoud operates at the intersection of sport, finance, and strategic communications. His background spans advisory roles in high-profile athlete management with a particular expertise in navigating the commercial landscape of European football at the elite level. He is not a traditional sports agent — his value lies in deal architecture, corporate governance, and the translation of an athlete’s commercial vision into structured financial assets. He is multilingual (Arabic, French, English), which matters for a portfolio with ambitions across multiple markets.
His formal title is CEO of Interconnected Ventures, the holding company that owns Coalition Capital and through which Mbappe’s equity positions are held. He is the public face of the business empire when Mbappe himself is unavailable or unwilling to speak — which, by design, is most of the time. The deliberate scarcity of Mbappe’s public commercial presence extends to his investment vehicle. Hammoud absorbs the operational visibility so that Kylian’s brand remains attached to the sporting identity.
The Caen acquisition — his most complex mandate
When Interconnected Ventures acquired approximately 80% of Stade Malherbe Caen in summer 2024 — taking over from Oaktree Capital Management — it was Hammoud who led the transaction and issued the public statement. His framing was precise and deliberate: the language positioned Coalition Capital as a long-term sporting investor committed to community engagement rather than a financial vehicle seeking a quick return. That framing was not accidental. It was a specific response to the reputational risk that comes with a global superstar owning a lower-division French football club — the narrative risk of being seen as a vanity project or an asset-stripping exercise.
The Caen acquisition is the most revealing data point in understanding Hammoud’s mandate. It required navigating French football governance, managing local stakeholder relationships, handling media exposure in a market (Normandy, French regional press) that is far from the global stage where Mbappe’s brand normally operates, and maintaining a coherent investment thesis across a deal that most observers found counterintuitive. The fact that it was executed without significant reputational damage is a measure of his operational competence.
Why Mbappe chose him — the specific gap he fills
The Mbappe inner circle is constructed around the principle of functional specificity. Fayza Lamari earns a reported €4.5M per year from Real Madrid as Kylian’s registered agent — her role is overall strategy and contract negotiation. Van Herdeyn charges by the hour and handles legal architecture. Yaelle manages operations and personal logistics. None of them is a corporate executive with experience in running portfolio companies, managing investment theses, and interacting with co-investors and venture partners.
That gap is exactly what Hammoud fills. Sports analysts have compared Mbappe’s off-pitch structure to LeBron James and his SpringHill Company — athlete as brand, investment vehicle as lever. The comparison is useful at a structural level but understates the role of the executive layer. SpringHill has a CEO. Hammoud is the equivalent: the operator who makes the strategy executable, who sits in the board meetings, who signs the term sheets, and who represents the institutional face of the portfolio when the athlete cannot or should not be present.
What the WC2026 window means for his mandate
The 2026 World Cup is the peak of Mbappe’s commercial window. In the 12 months that follow a successful tournament, the volume of inbound interest in Coalition Capital — from co-investors, from potential portfolio companies seeking Mbappe’s involvement, from brands seeking equity-based partnerships rather than traditional endorsements — will be at its highest level. Managing that inbound flow, distinguishing the structurally sound opportunities from the opportunistic ones, and maintaining the investment discipline that has characterised the portfolio to date is Hammoud’s most significant task of the next 18 months.
The Alan deal — €100M funding round, €5B valuation, announced March 24, 2026 — is the clearest preview of what that pipeline looks like. It is not a sponsorship. It is an equity position in a company that will grow independently of Mbappe’s sporting career. That is the model Hammoud is building toward: a portfolio that generates returns after the boots are retired. For the full Coalition Capital portfolio, see the investment fund anatomy.
— Victor Blanc, Football Business Correspondent
Deepen Your Intelligence
- Coalition Capital: The Architecture of Mbappe’s Investment Empire
- Inside the Fortress: The Complete Map of the Mbappe Network
- Fayza Lamari: The Agent-Mother Who Built the Mbappe Business Empire
About the author
Victor Blanc
Football Business Correspondent at Mbappé Live. Covers contracts, sponsorships, investment strategy, and the financial architecture behind elite sport.
