Manchester City: The Building of a New Football Empire

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The Function Of The New Football Empire

It would appear that the Sheiks had much bigger plans for the club than simply winning in the UK. Ultimately, Man City was purchased with the intention of creating an entire new footballing dynasty, able to match the Abu Dhabi Group’s already impressive array of businesses.

Sheik Mansour, the principal owner, created a parent company called City Football Group (CFG) to oversee all the footballing interests. Its official function lies in, ‘creating and administering a network of limited clubs and other footballing operations’, and it has begun buying clubs from all over the world and recreating them under the Manchester City mould.

2013 saw the creation of New York City, whilst in 2014, Melbourne City and Yokohama F Marinos were both born. This was followed by various other partnerships with football institutions. Espanyol, Sporting Lisbon and Ghana FA, for example, all have a ‘special’ relationship with City, with the official purpose behind this partnership being for ‘resource sharing, academy networking and marketing’.

The football clubs in this group have already courted controversy with loaning issues, like when Frank Lampard missed the start of the MLS season to play for Man City instead of New York.