In just a few short years, the soccer club Como 1907 has transformed its small-town grit into a magnet for the international elite vacationing on Lake Como.
The Indonesian billionaire brothers, Robert and Michael Hartono, owners of the cigarette giant Djarum, bought the struggling club in 2019, when it was mired in the lower leagues. Since then, they have poured hundreds of millions into lifting Como into the upper reaches of Serie A, Italy’s top soccer league. Last season, the club finished 10th, just shy of the threshold for European competition—the aristocracy of old-world football.
