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Manchester City wants to be the biggest football club in the world and your new favorite team. This is what they’re doing to accomplish that goal.
Manchester City Wants to be Your New Best Friend:
Since City were taken over by the then little-known Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) in 2008, massive changes have been undertaken in the city of Manchester and English football in general.
The ADUG, which is headed by the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan (more commonly known as “Sheikh Mansour”), has set out to make Manchester City Football Club the biggest and most engaging football club in the world.
Manchester City have sought out and succeeded in dominating a crucial realm of a football club’s lifeblood — they’ve reached out and engaged with the fans, especially through social media. Currently, Manchester City boast one of the highest social media followings in world sports with: north of 20 million Facebook followers, mare than 3 million Twitter followers and 2.8 million followers on Instagram.
While still more than a few places shy of Barcelona, Real Madrid and even cross town rival United, City’s owners have made social engagement a priority for the Sky Blues.
For example, they were one of the first teams to participate in innovative engagement projects, such as allowing fans more access to the Etihad Stadium with a Tunnel Cam or being one of the first clubs to use Foursquare with their website a few years ago (they’ve since switched to YouTube and have one of the most popular channels).
The digital loyalty exhibited toward this club is remarkable, especially considering they weren’t even in the Premier League 15 years ago.
City’s owners are some of the richest businessmen walking the planet. There was no doubt they’d be savvy and know they’d need to capitalize on the team’s already loyal local fanbase, and of course they'd want to market that loyalty in new markets. Manchester City’s official website is now available in many official translations, including Spanish, French and Arabic.
Manchester City is a club that less than 20 years ago was playing lower division football and now are a mere click away from being your new best friend, and, most importantly, your new favorite football club.
Manchester City Are One Of The Best-Run Clubs in Football Today:
Since the takeover eight years ago, City’s new owners have been pretty drama-free. There is no talk of fan unrest or boycotts at the stadium. Manchester City runs like a well-oiled machine, with all its moving parts working in sync, and it starts from Shiekh Mansour down. Below The Sheikh is his right-hand man, the chairman of Manchester City, Khaldoon Al Mubarak.
Mubarak was instrumental, along with Mansour, in deciding to appoint two ex-Barcelona executives: Ferran Soriano as City’s Chief Executive Officer and Txiki Begiristain as Director of Football. Since arriving in Manchester, these two men have sought out to not only replicate, but improve upon the formula that made their old team, FC Barcelona, so incredibly successful. So far they seem to be making the right moves.
It came as no shock when the worst-kept secret in football, the appointment of Pep Guardiola to Manchester City, became a reality in February of this year. The hierarchy of the club want to keep building on their growing success and image by tapping into one of the most attractive models in club football: sexy Pep Guardiola and his Catalan Tiki-Taka.
It is a proven model that has brought Barcelona success and if City can achieve even a fraction of it, most would say this new strategic gamble was well worth it.
Manchester City, you’re new favorite team and they’re as good as Barcelona. Scratch that, they want to be better than Barcelona. But how?
Manchester Citys All Around the World:
How can a football club assure itself of world domination? That’s easy: just set up feeder clubs worldwide. Much like the Oasis song of the same name, Manchester City are spreading roots all around the world.
Manchester City’s financial holding company, City Football Group, which is a subsidiary of the aforementioned ADUG, has recently set it sights on buying stakes, and in some cases major ownership, in smaller football clubs from around the world.
Presently, the teams active in City Football Group’s roster includes The MLS’s New York City FC, Australia’s Melbourne FC, a 20 percent stake in Japan’s Yokohama F.Marinos, teams in Singapore and China and Manchester City themselves.
With ownership interest in clubs overseas City Football Group is embarking on innovative and relatively unchartered territory in world football. Sure, many clubs have set up loan agreements with different clubs abroad, but for the owners of one football club to essentially own clubs and run them as feeder clubs for their big club this is truly an evolution.
Essentially Manchester City has various fully functional, professional level farm teams and if the next Ronaldo or Neymar were to come out of say, China or the Bronx, you better believe the parent club in Manchester would snag him up. Sure, the next Messi coming out of Shanghai may be unlikely, but at the very least it is a smart business model to drum up foreign interest, revenue, and international infrastructure for the big club in Manchester.
Manchester City are going to takeover the world and you’ll love it. You’ll cheer on the Sky Blues along with those rowdy and crazy Gallagher brothers, just try not to get punched in the face. Now, take it away, Liam.
