Champions League 2020 - 2021: Đại tiệc thập kỷ mới.

[nhatanh]

Vẫn như mấy hôm vừa rồi, phân tích lí lẽ chán rồi ông @vietanh797 đọc cố ý ko hiểu nhỉ, (1) luật Bosman đúng về lí (2) luật Bosman cũng là miếng ghép cuối cùng tạo nên tình trạng hiện tại nhưng (3) gốc rễ vấn đề đéo phải tại nó

 

[Siscon]

Nếu vậy luật bosman cũng chỉ để đảm bảo quyền lợi của cầu thủ thôi,người tài cần được hưởng mức lương xứng đáng và trải nghiệm môi trường bóng đá đỉnh cao.Cũng như sinh viên bỏ quê lên thành phố học tập và làm việc thôi,đất lành thì chim đậu.

Nói chi thể thao chuyên nghiệp đi chơi phủi thôi,ai có trình độ xíu chả muốn góp mặt,làm việc với những người giỏi ngang để cùng nhau cạnh tranh danh hiệu,chiến thắng,có ai muốn suót ngày gồng gánh mấy thằng đá xìu xìu ểnh ểnh rồi chôn vùi khả năng của mình cùng mấy thằng đó đâu.Đó là không chuyên còn thế,chuyên nghiệp còn nói về tiền lương,khát vọng của cả đời cầu thủ ngắn ngủi,rồi chúng ta bắt tất cả phải ở lại đội cũ,nhận lương bèo bọt,gồng mình gánh lũ bất tài và chôn vùi tài năng?Các clb mạnh lên rồi bán máu là do chính bản thân bọn nó không đầu tư,không có chu trình dài hạn để phát triển đội bóng chứ không phải do nó "bị" mấy clb khác rút ruột

Theo mình cái đáng lên án của bóng đá kim tiền là mấy thằng cò mất dạy xúi cầu thủ bỏ tập,làm loạn gây khó khăn trong đàm phán với bơm thổi ép giá clb chủ quản kìa.

 

[vietanh797]

Vẫn như mấy hôm vừa rồi, phân tích lí lẽ chán rồi ông @vietanh797 đọc cố ý ko hiểu nhỉ, (1) luật Bosman đúng về lí (2) luật Bosman cũng là miếng ghép cuối cùng tạo nên tình trạng hiện tại nhưng (3) gốc rễ vấn đề đéo phải tại nó

tôi nói luật nó sai hồi mẹ nào? tôi bảo nếu hủy luật bosman thì là đi ngược với luật lao động EU đọc ko hiểu lại kêu tôi sai? Tôi nói nó là nguyên nhân gián tiếp, bỏ nó thì sẽ kéo dài đc bóng đá địa phương phát triển, đội bóng địa phương giữ đc cầu thủ giỏi mới có sức hút cho bóng đá, chứ cầu thủ mà để nó giỏi nó đi đội mạnh thì lực hút bóng đá giảm với fan là chuyện rõ ràng.

Nếu vậy luật bosman cũng chỉ để đảm bảo quyền lợi của cầu thủ thôi,người tài cần được hưởng mức lương xứng đáng và trải nghiệm môi trường bóng đá đỉnh cao.Cũng như sinh viên bỏ quê lên thành phố học tập và làm việc thôi,đất lành thì chim đậu.

Nói chi thể thao chuyên nghiệp đi chơi phủi thôi,ai có trình độ xíu chả muốn góp mặt,làm việc với những người giỏi ngang để cùng nhau cạnh tranh danh hiệu,chiến thắng,có ai muốn suót ngày gồng gánh mấy thằng đá xìu xìu ểnh ểnh rồi chôn vùi khả năng của mình cùng mấy thằng đó đâu.Đó là không chuyên còn thế,chuyên nghiệp còn nói về tiền lương,khát vọng của cả đời cầu thủ ngắn ngủi,rồi chúng ta bắt tất cả phải ở lại đội cũ,nhận lương bèo bọt,gồng mình gánh lũ bất tài và chôn vùi tài năng?Các clb mạnh lên rồi bán máu là do chính bản thân bọn nó không đầu tư,không có chu trình dài hạn để phát triển đội bóng chứ không phải do nó "bị" mấy clb khác rút ruột

Theo mình cái đáng lên án của bóng đá kim tiền là mấy thằng cò mất dạy xúi cầu thủ bỏ tập,làm loạn gây khó khăn trong đàm phán với bơm thổi ép giá clb chủ quản kìa.

Ví dụ nhé, Nottingham Forest cả thị trấn 40k dân, tính ra coi như toàn fan thì cũng đc 20k fan căng đét tới sân, coi như 50% mua áo lưu niệm và vật dung nghĩa là ẩn tại có khoảng 10k khách hàng, đi đá xa nhà trong Anh chỉ có 10% fan theo đội được tức là 2k fan và đi ra nước ngoài chỉ còn 1% tức là 200 fan. So với CLB ở London như Arsenal có 9 triệu dân, chia ra cho 3 CLB đi thì là 3 triệu ẩn tại coi như chỉ 30% cũng đã là 1 triệu số mua hàng cũng là 500k, có thể đi theo du đấu là 100k, sang nc ngoài cũng phải 10k. Tôi bỏ qua ko tính quảng cáo và các khoản thu khác.
Các ông đã thấy chênh lệch kinh tế của 2 CLB ở 2 thành phố chưa? Ví dụ thế để các ông hiểu tại sao bóng đá đi tới bây giờ có những luật như Bosman sẽ giết chết cạnh tranh bóng đá, cái các ông thấy là cạnh tranh $ ko phải bóng đá

 

[HaQuyenn]

ko có agent nắm rõ luật pháp làm sao Văn Lâm thắng tụi Muangthong được, với khả năng đàm phán giỏi deal được lương cao , cầu thủ giỏi lương phải cao , thời đại kim tiền ,... luật ntn thì các clb nhỏ ít tiền cũng thất thế thôi

 

[amorphous1234]

Thấy mấy giải quốc nội h tránh tình trạng 1 đội vô địch nên chơi play off 4 đội xếp đầu cuối mùa đập nhau. Vậy sẽ hấp dẫn hơn và có tiền nhiều hơn.

 

[Tên truy cập]

Thấy mấy giải quốc nội h tránh tình trạng 1 đội vô địch nên chơi play off 4 đội xếp đầu cuối mùa đập nhau. Vậy sẽ hấp dẫn hơn và có tiền nhiều hơn.

Thế thì xếp cho đá bậc thang, mỗi mùa lại kéo thêm 3 trận . Nhưng như vậy giả sử đội top 1 căng sức đá farm điểm một mùa, bỏ xa thằng thứ 2 tầm chục điểm, vào chung kết playoff mà thua thì hơi bạc bẽo.

 

[heoconbusua]

Thôi cái Bosman ra đời là tất yếu rồi chứ gián tiếp ảnh hưởng bóng đá gì, ko có Bosman cũng sẽ có Ronaldo Messi Ibra Pogba ruling thôi. Cái chuyện CLB có quyền ko cho phép cầu thủ ra đi nó tào lao rõ ràng như vậy rồi chứ nếu thì gì nữa.

Bảo vệ CLB nhỏ thì tăng chi phí hỗ trợ đào tạo trẻ khi cầu thủ chuyển nhượng, ai lại bắt cá nhân chịu thiệt cho tổ chức.

Mà sắp tới các CLB nhỏ cũng bắt đầu mất ưu thế đào tạo luôn đấy, ai rảnh có thể tham khảo mô hình của thằng CFG aka Man City, hệ thống CLB của nó Âu - Á - Mỹ - Úc có đủ cả, tới khi các ông lớn khác cảm thấy hụt hơi, buộc phải theo con đường bành trướng của ManC thì các lò Ajax, Basel... sớm muộn cũng thành quá khứ vì thua sút tiềm lực tài chính hết.

Với hệ thống CLB trải khắp thế giới thì Man City không chỉ có thể vơ vét sớm các măng non mà còn có thể phát triển các tài năng này theo một lộ trình nhất quán, đó là lợi thế tuyệt đối mà loan system hiện nay không thể so sánh được.

Đây bài report siêu cấp của The Athletic.

Phần 1:

Special report: City Football Group. Part one – empire building

Sam Lee, Matt Slater and more Dec 9, 2020

126

Additional contributors: Sam Stejskal, Paul Tenorio and Ali Humayun

A bad bounce, an untimely slip, the wrong tactics, awful signings, injuries, the bloody referee: these are the reasons most of us give when our side loses.

Ferran Soriano is not like most of us. He thinks such calamities are excuses, symptoms of short-term thinking and proof you have not thought hard enough about it.

He spent six years putting his theories into practice at Barcelona, wrote a book about how he might do it better next time and then got that chance when he met a different club in a hurry to win and with pots of cash.

The result is City Football Group (CFG), an empire that stretches from Yokohama to New York. Incorporated in 2013, five years after Sheikh Mansour’s money transformed the mothership Manchester City, it now has a “menu of clubs” — 10 across five continents — and chief executive Soriano is at the helm.

The Athletic has spoken to sources across the globe to help explain Soriano’s vision for CFG, why the group has chosen certain clubs and leagues, and how its sides share information and resources. In it we explain:

• How City felt creating a global network was their best hope of catching Manchester United
• How some clubs are more used for brand purposes and others for developing talent
• The Guardiola playbook available to staff at all the clubs
• Reasons some people are not happy with City’s empire

In Part II we will look at how CFG identifies, develops, loans and sells players — highlighting New York City FC in particular — and analyse the commercial aspect of a business whose most valuable asset, Manchester City, is valued by US business magazine Forbes at $2.7 billion (£2 billion). We also ask what the future is for a business that aims to become football’s version of the all-conquering All Blacks, New Zealand’s men’s rugby union team.

For some, CFG will always be an exercise in sportswashing, an elaborate ruse to circumvent financial fair play or just a fun way to fritter away a fortune. But for a growing number of industry experts, potential investors and even rivals, CFG’s multi-club model is the answer to many of the game’s structural challenges, a sound investment in global demographics and the best way to ensure you get fewer bad bounces, slips, ideas, signings, knocks and calls than the other lot.

The vision: ‘Football as a sprawling entertainment business like Disney’

“There are essentially two fundamental components: Abu Dhabi and Ferran Soriano,” explains Professor Simon Chadwick, director of Eurasian Sport at Emlyon Business School. “Together, they bring a distinctiveness in approach that differentiates them from other multi-club groups, such as Red Bull (the owners of clubs in Austria, Brazil, Germany and the United States).”

Chadwick first met Soriano in 2005, when the latter was halfway through a spell on Barcelona’s board that revived the club’s fortunes. They hit it off. A year later, the Barcelona vice-president gave a presentation to Chadwick’s students at the University of London — the professor has kept the slides. And they continued to talk when Chadwick moved to the University of Salford and Soriano became chief executive at Manchester City in 2012.

“He was a tech millionaire by 30,” says Chadwick. “When he became a board member at Barca, he had to lodge a bond of one million euros.

“Part of his education was at ESADE in Barcelona, one of the world’s best business schools. It’s founded upon the principles of Saint Ignatius. He believed individuals should understand the world and develop a more robust vision of it; that they should lead, think and act in new ways.

“You see how this has shaped Soriano’s view of the world, from his early days making money, reforming Barca and later envisioning football as a sprawling entertainment business like Disney.”

After Sheikh Mansour had spent £210 million on buying Manchester City from former Thailand prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and clearing the debts, the United Arab Emirates’ deputy prime minister had run up almost £500 million in losses in four seasons. That investment brought an FA Cup in 2011 and the Premier League title in 2012, but by that point, the club had been without a permanent chief executive since Garry Cook’s resignation nine months before. UEFA’s new spending rules had come into force and Sheikh Mansour had seen enough to know his money was leaking through too many cracks in the business model.

Having pipped Manchester United to the title on the last day of the 2011-12 season, City looked at their crosstown rivals and tried to work out how they could match their pulling power. City had attracted players every bit as good, if not better, than those at Old Trafford but the club down the road cited more than 600 million global followers. How could City bridge that gap? Trophies alone would not be enough.

According to Killing The Game, Daniel Slack-Smith’s 2018 book about City’s transformation, it took club chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak and his board three months to identify Soriano as their top candidate and another nine months to persuade him to join their project. Or was it the other way around?

“Abu Dhabi was looking for vision at City while Soriano wanted a way back into football so he could translate his view of football’s future into a new reality,” says Chadwick.

Manchester City chairman Al Mubarak (right) and chief executive Soriano in August 2012 (Photo: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
“Abu Dhabi is an absolute monarchy — it is not constrained by the demands of its people or the vagaries of shareholder capitalism. Gulf economies are moving away from a dependency on carbon fuel revenues by diversifying into other sectors. This transition is designed to take decades, rather than a Premier League season or two.

“Abu Dhabi uses revenues derived from overseas investments to offset the need for a domestic tax system. By not having taxes, the ruling family legitimises its position. Getting investments such as CFG right are as much about remaining in power as they are about the emirate’s economic future.”

Both sides knew what they were getting. The English champions’ ambition could not have been more obvious, while Soriano had helped Barcelona become the dominant force City aspired to be. And City’s board could always read Soriano’s book, Goal: The Ball Doesn’t Go In By Chance, which Johan Cruyff and Lionel Messi were kind enough to endorse and included the author’s thoughts on the clubs that had become “global brands”.

In the book, Soriano explains that Europe’s elite must act like multinationals by developing better ways to engage with customers at home and abroad. He tells the story of Barcelona’s decision to launch a Japanese version of the club website and sell memberships to Japanese fans. That summer, the club toured the country and in a game against Yokohama F Marinos, the stadium was split evenly between fans of the home team and Barca’s local supporters. The latter even sang in Catalan.

Andres Iniesta signs Barcelona shirts in Yokohama in December 2011 during the Club World Cup (Photo: Mike Hewitt/FIFA via Getty Images)
The experience clearly made an impression because, in 2014, City Football Group bought a 20 per cent stake in Yokohama F Marinos, making the Japanese side the fourth member of City Football Group.

The book goes on to outline three models for growing a club’s global brand:

• “Distributing products” in overseas markets, namely broadcast rights and replica kits, with a summer tour to back up these efforts.
• Clubs build on this by opening academies “in foreign, faraway countries”, as Barcelona did in Mexico.
• “A natural progression”: actual franchises playing abroad to give elite clubs a permanent presence.

Soriano also explains how he met Major League Soccer (MLS) commissioner Don Garber in New York in 2005 to find out if the American league would be interested in a Barcelona-branded team. First, they looked at Miami, then New York. He never closed that deal — although MLS ended up managing Barcelona’s US marketing and game promotion — but when he told City’s directors about it in the talks about the chief executive role, they loved it. In fact, what Al Mubarak wanted to know was: why stop at New York?

Seven years on, with MLS looking to add two more franchises, Garber again got in contact with Soriano — even before he had officially started at City, which had by then “risen to become a football powerhouse” in the commissioner’s eyes.

Soriano was sent to New York to start negotiations on his second day in the job. Nine months later, CFG became a reality when it paid MLS $100 million for the New York City franchise, the league’s 20th in total. As a senior CFG source puts it, “the alchemy for CFG happened during Ferran’s recruitment process”.

CFG was wholly owned by Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), Sheikh Mansour’s private investment company, until 2015 when China Media Capital and Chinese state-backed investment firm CITIC Group paid $400 million (£298 million) for a 13 per cent stake. In November 2019, US-based private equity firm Silver Lake came on board too, paying $500 million (£373 million) for 10 per cent, leaving ADUG with 77 per cent.

Pacific Media Group’s Paul Conway is the co-owner of a football multinational of his own — the Championship’s Barnsley, Belgian first-division team KV Oostende and Swiss side FC Thun — and CFG’s positions make perfect sense to him.

“There are four key rationales for the multi-club model,” Conway tells The Athletic. “The first is commercial synergy and CFG does a good job of this. If you want to be a major sponsor for Manchester City, you have to sponsor the team in Uruguay (Montevideo City Torque), too. That bit of the deal might be only worth £50,000 but it adds up.

“The second is internal synergy, which is straightforward cost-saving. All these clubs do not need their own chief executives, chief financial officers, chief operating officers.

“And that leads to the third benefit: uniformity of strategy. It’s easy in this industry to lose money because of inconsistent or incompetent decision-making but you can mitigate that risk with a clear management structure and a single approach to commercial deals, player contracts and so on.”

The final benefit, Conway explains, is on the football performance side of the business: everything from having the right place to develop the right talent, to keeping transfer fees within the family.

There is, of course, another benefit to Sheikh Mansour’s massive investment in football: it has got people talking about how he has brought Sergio Aguero, Pep Guardiola and co to the Premier League, how he has poured money into East Manchester and even what a nice place Abu Dhabi is to visit, but not the UAE’s treatment of its migrant workers, poor human rights record or involvement in the brutal civil war in Yemen.

For organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, CFG is a giant exercise in misdirection, a brightly-painted screen behind which the UAE can hide attitudes and behaviour it knows will not play well abroad. And there are others who will simply scoff at all CFG’s claims of long-term investment horizons and rising enterprise values and say, “hold on, isn’t this all just a clever (but legal) way around FFP?” Or, as Liverpool owner John W Henry memorably tweeted when he heard about the £400 million, 10-year, naming-rights-and-shirt deal Etihad signed with Manchester City in 2011, “how much was the losing bid?”

Tweets are one thing, UEFA charges are another, and City’s owners have faced two sets of those since 2014. But just when it looked like the club’s relationship with its Abu Dhabi backers might derail the whole CFG project, City’s legal team won a famous victory over UEFA’s at the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the threat of sanctions, if not the debate itself, was put to bed, probably forever.

‘We would rather have a B team or a feeder club but we can’t do that in this country, so we have to look at other opportunities’

Soriano does not speak in public much these days, which is why his Q&A, via video link, during October’s Leaders Week conference was so eagerly anticipated.

Noting that CFG had just bought Troyes of the French second division, the interviewer asked Soriano, “I think that’s your ninth club, what’s the thinking there?”


“I have to correct you, we have 10, we acquired a club in Belgium,” replied Soriano, smiling. “Football is what we do and we have this network of clubs that allows us to help each other from a technical and football perspective, (as well as) develop good clubs that play good football and become financially sustainable and add to our group.”

Brian Marwood, managing director of global football at CFG, puts it another way. “We have clubs that we’re building to try to challenge at the top of their respective leagues, or to play in the Asian Champions League or the CONCACAF or obviously the Champions League,” he tells The Athletic. “There are other clubs that we feel can be a potential developmental platform for our young talent.”

CFG’s interest in developing young talent is a prime example of how it has evolved since plans for global domination were first drawn up in 2013. Marwood, City’s football administrator at the time, and director of football services Simon Wilson were moved into an external office to oversee “City Football Services”. It was at first, according to sources, primarily a commercial venture, with growing sponsorship revenues and the City fanbase prized far above all else.

The idea was simple: more eyes on CFG equals more commercial and brand partnerships and more affection for the club in Manchester. Player trading and development was essentially an afterthought, certainly compared to the sheer amount of time and resource pumped into it now.

At first, then, the huge emerging market of the US stood out (more on that later). Then came Melbourne and an opportunity for CFG to invest in an Australian club for only £7 million. There is a salary cap in the A-League but money has been pumped into infrastructure, coaching, medical, scouting and academy costs. One CFG source estimates an average category-one Premier League academy costs up to £3 million to run per year, which is equivalent to the amounts being spent on Melbourne City, which can also bring in revenue from crowds and television deals. The sale of Australia international Aaron Mooy, who moved to Manchester from Melbourne in 2016 before being sold to Huddersfield Town for at least £8 million, covered those costs for three years.

Last year, new ventures in the massive markets of China and India were announced, but CFG has adapted its approach over the past five years and the ninth and 10th clubs to join were those minnows in Belgium and France.

The change in thinking began within Manchester City’s academy. Part of the post-takeover plan in 2008 was to ensure the club, which had produced a large number of players for the first team in the 2000s, could still produce talent now that they had reached the next level, and were competing in the Champions League.

More than two years of research went into developing the City Football Academy as executives observed and borrowed ideas from the other sports around the world. They based their hydrotherapy facilities and recovery centre on those they saw in the NBA and NFL and visited Nike’s base in Oregon and the Australian Institute of Sport.

The idea was also to bring in some of the most talented 14-to-16-year-olds from around the world, including Karim Rekik (from the Netherlands), Rony Lopes (Brazil) and the slightly older Kelechi Iheanacho (Nigeria). They never made too big an impression on the first team but they were sold for big sums: Rekik for £4.5 million, Lopes £9 million and Iheanacho £25 million. Deals like those became regarded as proof of a business model and opened eyes to the possibility of replicating it on a global scale.

Rekik facing Reading in the Premier League in December 2012 (Photo: Julian Finney/Getty Images)
As a consequence, CFG has shifted towards investing in clubs in more established footballing markets. The cycle had evolved. More fans means more partnerships, meaning more revenues that can be invested in better players who can be developed further to one day either play for Manchester City or be sold for profit.

With NYCFC and Melbourne, it was felt the future values of MLS and the A-League would soar, based on increasing broadcast deals. When Girona were brought into the group in 2017, they had just been promoted to a La Liga that had moved to a Premier League-style TV rights deal. This meant that instead of letting Barcelona and Real Madrid take the lion’s share, broadcast income would be distributed more evenly between all of the clubs.

A source close to the Girona deal says those commercial opportunities were the primary business justification for the investment, but the value of sending players to the Spanish top flight had also become much more important. CFG had recognised that there was year-on-year growth of 20 per cent in the transfer market and that even holding players for two years would see a rise in their value.

Manchester City had already been loaning players to Girona for a couple of years — 16 have moved from City to Girona since 2016. Pere Guardiola, Pep’s brother and an influential agent, and Jaume Roures, a businessman who has close ties to Soriano, had bought 80 per cent of the club in 2015. After the CFG investment, the two parties owned 44.3 per cent each, although following recent investment, Pere’s share has shrunk to 16 per cent and CFG owns 48 per cent.

Other clubs have been brought exclusively for their player development and trading capabilities.

Soriano has talked openly about his desire for Premier League clubs to have B teams in the EFL and the resistance to that has been another factor in CFG’s more recent determination to bring in clubs to help them develop and/or sell players.

“One of my biggest frustrations is that in this country we still haven’t recognised a greater ability to develop young players from the age of 18 to 22, and the loan system can be very hit and miss, it can create more problems than it solves,” Marwood says.

“In an ideal world we would rather have a B team or a feeder club but we can’t do that in this country, so we have to look at other opportunities. With Lommel (a club in Belgium’s second division), we can give opportunities to young players and allow them to grow and develop properly.

“We run the risk of losing that young talent. So we try to create platforms with some of our clubs and give these young players an opportunity.”

The acquisition of Uruguayan side Club Atletico Torque at the start of 2017 was “100 per cent” about investment in talent, according to one source. CFG is proud of the club’s promotion to the top flight but there is an acceptance that returns on sponsorship, crowd revenues or media rights will be small, at least at first. When City’s takeover was announced, Soriano noted the example of Bruno Fornaroli, a player CFG picked up from Uruguayan side Danubio for Melbourne and “became the best player in Australia”. Marwood cites the example of Valentin Castellanos, who left Torque for New York.

City have long had a big scouting presence in South America, headed up by Joan Patsy, a close friend of Manchester City’s director of football Txiki Begiristain, who had worked alongside Cruyff at Barcelona. The goal with Torque, rebranded and renamed Montevideo City Torque in January, is to help develop players across South America, although the focus is likely to be on Uruguayans.

“They have what’s called ‘baby football’ there, so they are playing football very, very early, on the kinds of pitches that would be akin to the ones we grew up on maybe 20 or 40 years ago,” Marwood says. “It’s a great place to start in terms of character and personality, having that kind of street fighting mentality, of hunger and desire. If you get the technical side right, you’re going to get some interesting players.”

Those familiar with CFG’s plans say clubs such as Torque provide “registration platforms”: in short, there is only so much space at Manchester City, so a network of clubs around the world helps CFG retain much larger numbers.

That has played a large part in the acquisition of Lommel and Troyes. Neither would be able to qualify for European competition as UEFA only allows one club under the same ownership structure to play in its tournaments. Lommel may also struggle to pick up fans given its relative proximity to Eindhoven and Genk, home to two successful and historical clubs.

But all of these clubs were obtained cheaply. Lommel were in disarray and would not have had their league licence renewed when City stepped in, clearing debts of around £2 million as part of the deal. Across the purchases of Troyes and Torque, CFG spent roughly £12 million.

Clubs in central Europe were also desirable because certain leagues and countries suit players better than others. CFG, for example, is doing more business in Japan thanks in part to Yokohama’s own scouts identifying top talents, and because they are generally very cheap. History shows that Japanese players have tended to do well in the Netherlands and Germany, and Belgium is seen as a similarly productive environment. Troyes or Girona, however, would be better suited to any players coming through Torque, as would MLS. Troyes also have a B team, providing further opportunities for player development.

The Australian market has also been popular because players generally cost no more than £150,000. They would be sent to more physical, English-style leagues. Marwood says the goal is to “create a menu of clubs” to give these players the best chance of success. There is another benefit to owning a club in continental Europe, too.

Marwood speaks to England manager Gareth Southgate (Photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
“Owning teams in other leagues is a hedge against Brexit,” says Conway, who is currently trying to buy AS Nancy, the French second-tier team CFG looked at this summer before opting for Troyes. “There are 26 professional teams in Belgium and eight of them have strategic investors, with most having an interest in an English team.

“Look how much talent is coming from Belgium and France. In the past, Manchester City have spent €2 million on a development player but now they’ve just bought Lommel for the same amount. I don’t know why more clubs haven’t worked this out.”

From January 1, players who would have moved freely to English clubs in the past will now be subjected to the same points-based work permit system as non-EU players. English clubs will also no longer be able to sign under-18 players from abroad.

How can Manchester City keep buying promising young players, such as Pedro Porro and Pablo Moreno, if those players do not meet the criteria for a work permit? Easy: have a CFG club sign them instead.

It could prove a slightly harder sell when the team on the contract is Lommel or Troyes rather than Manchester City, although the pathway will be the same. Diego Rosa, the 18-year-old Brazilian, has been linked heavily with a move to Lommel next year in a deal that could rise to more then £20 million depending on appearances.

New FIFA regulations also seek to limit the number of players on loan from a club at the same time to just eight, eventually falling to six. The pandemic has slowed those plans but the CFG model means Manchester City are better placed than most to deal with them. For example, last January, City signed Japanese player Ko Itakura and loaned him to Groningen. This January, CFG will sign Koki Saito for Lommel.

Itakura playing for Groningen in October (Photo: Etienne Zegers/Soccrates/Getty Images)
As a bonus, players can get work permits in Belgium once they’re paid around £73,000 ($97,000) a year, while those playing in the Belgian league often come with lofty reputations and can be sold for big fees: for example, Jonathan David, a 20-year-old Canadian who signed for Gent in 2018, moved to Lille for £27 million this summer.

According to one source with knowledge of the market, that fee set a new benchmark and will soon be beaten again. As Marwood says, City intend to use Lommel for youth development and they have installed Liam Manning, academy director at NYCFC, as coach of a very young team.

It is estimated CFG has already spent around €12 million on talent and facilities at Lommel, making them one of the rare Belgian clubs to have a net spend rather than a net profit. The second-placed club in the top division, for example, spent €300,000 over the same period. Such spending is unheard of for a second-tier side but far from exorbitant by CFG’s standards.

The Yokohama F Marinos deal came about during discussions with a CFG global sponsor, the car manufacturer Nissan, which founded the Japanese club in 1972. CFG initially did not have a say in sporting director or managerial hires but, over time, the benefit of its global reach and resources has ensured a closer relationship. This benefits CFG through an increased understanding of Japanese football, culture and the local transfer market, even though it only has a 20 per cent stake in the club (Nissan still owns the other 80 per cent).

In China, progress is intended to be steady and CFG was slightly startled when its club, Sichuan Jiuniu, were unexpectedly promoted from the third tier to the second after the Chinese FA stripped 11 clubs of their licences for failing to pay players. Despite a £265 million investment from China Media Capital in 2015, CFG has found progress in the market slow and is happy to limit its expenses, establish relationships with local partners and bide its time before making its move towards the Super League.

“We’re learning the market,” says a CFG source. “We’re in a great city with a catchment area of 80 million — that’s more than the UK — we’re the standout professional sports franchise in the region and we’re ahead of schedule.”

The Chinese experience shows that not every club follows the same blueprint but an incredible amount of work goes into ensuring CFG’s 10 clubs, including its women’s and academy teams, are singing from the same hymn sheet.

‘Taking the car apart and putting it back together again’: The City Football Group manual

There is a manual by which NYCFC were built, Melbourne rebuilt and every other future CFG club will have to abide. New clubs are audited, processes put in place and it is made clear that certain standards must be met, from infrastructure and technology to playing style.

One of Marwood’s responsibilities is to make sure this happens. He calls this initial process a health check that’s “very, very detailed” and involves “taking the car apart and putting it back together again”.

It applies to people as well as processes, from the head coach to the kitman. One external source with knowledge of how the group works says CFG is quick to “clear out deadwood”.

The framework was drawn up in 2013 and is based on the transformation that took place at Manchester City in the years following the 2008 takeover. They aimed to learn from the good and the bad, and apply it to clubs in different regions with different budgets.

There is a centralised database of information that means coaches in Mumbai can teach their players Guardiola’s positional play, club doctors around the world can share research on injuries and recovery methods, and a team of scouts can identify players for the Manchester City first team, Chinese second division or the women’s teams in Manchester and Melbourne.

There are global leads of football performance, human performance and talent management, and a daunting amount of modules that govern what best practice looks like. Each of those modules is subjected to five subsections of scrutiny.

When assessing scouting and recruitment, for example, the five areas will assess whether the right people are in place, whether the right processes are being followed, whether the infrastructure (for example, travel) is adequate, whether the right technology is available, and if there is room for innovation to achieve a competitive advantage.

Melbourne had never seen detail like it and had no objections, although more recently established clubs have been a little more resistant to the changes. Ultimately, there is no other option.

“We can share a lot of the sessions that Pep does (in Manchester) with the guys in Melbourne, New York or Montevideo,” Marwood says. “But a lot of those sessions are very detailed, so the coaches need to be coached. We set up a network that develops our coaches. They can go online and get access to several tools, where they can educate themselves.

“All the sporting directors are fully aware of the style of play and what the requirement is. In some respects, we put that above anything else. We’re very protective of that and we work very hard to make sure all of the clubs implement that in the best way they possibly can.”

Marwood, who can watch every match of every club live from his home, will speak to CFG’s different sporting directors at least once a week, and his team are in constant contact with their colleagues on the ground. The manual that governs best practice is updated every few months, and if a doctor in Melbourne is having success with a recovery technique that is not used at other clubs, it can be incorporated into the central framework, across men’s and women’s teams. The group’s shared medical expertise has been particularly helpful during the pandemic, with staff at Lommel and City able to share information about changing protocols, for example.

Coaches also tend to move between CFG clubs. Erick Mombaerts has been working with CFG for eight years, having been recommended to Marwood by Arsene Wenger and Gerard Houllier. He has coached both Yokohama and Melbourne, stabilising those clubs with a more “no-nonsense” footballing style. Mombarts is set to take on a new role coaching youth coaches at Troyes, and was replaced in Melbourne by former Australia international Patrick Kisnorbo, who had stayed with the club since retiring in 2016. Nick Cushing, Manchester City Women’s long-serving boss, became assistant manager in New York earlier this year.

Mombaerts speaks to his Melbourne City players during the 2020 A-League Grand Final (Photo: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
Aaron Hughes, the former Newcastle United and Aston Villa defender who signed for Melbourne in 2015, reached out to Marwood after finishing his career in India. CFG is now helping him complete a sporting director’s degree while he helps the group navigate the landscape of Indian football following their purchase of Mumbai City last year.

At many of its clubs, CFG has made an instant impact. The doctor’s office at Melbourne used to face the gents’ toilets, which had a door missing, meaning injured players were used to getting a rather full view of their team-mates. And that was nothing compared to the snakes in the dressing room. Torque didn’t even have a minibus and Marwood likens their facilities, both academy and first team, to a “pub team on a Sunday morning”. “It was appalling,” he says.

Not everybody speaks as glowingly about CFG methods, of course. There was also controversy around Anthony Caceres, who was signed by Manchester City from Central Coast Mariners and immediately loaned to Melbourne in 2016. There are no transfers allowed in the A-League and some rival clubs were livid that the rules had been bent. The Australian federation has moved to close the loophole, which is now known as the Caceres Rule.

While Melbourne reached their first Grand Final last season, some believe they would be better off focusing on big-name marquee signings, such as the spells of Alessandro Del Piero and Emile Heskey at Sydney and Newcastle Jets respectively, to attract more fans. David Villa had a very short-lived spell there before his time at New York but CFG prefers to focus on development.

CFG has also ploughed money into Girona’s infrastructure but they remain lower mid-table in a recently published ranking of the spending limits set by La Liga in Spain’s Segunda Division. Their €4.25 million limit is dwarfed by Espanyol (Chinese owners) with €45 million, Almeria (Saudi) €27 million, Mallorca (US) €19 million and even Sabadell (a group of international investors), newly promoted to the second tier, with €4.8 million.

The message is that Girona are “not Manchester City 2”, but none of the CFG clubs are — they all serve a different purpose.

Part II of The Athletic’s special report into CFG asks: does this approach actually work?

(Top image: Alice Devine/Tifo for The Athletic)

 

[heoconbusua]

Phần 2:

Special report: City Football Group. Part two – does it work?




Sam Lee, Matt Slater and more Dec 10, 2020

64

Additional contributors: Sam Stejskal, Paul Tenorio and Ali Humayun

In the summer of 2014, Manchester City’s most senior scouts were tasked with compiling a list of five candidates to become Melbourne City’s “Designated Player” — whose wages could be unlimited and would not count against the Australian club’s salary cap. These were scouts who had recently come under the umbrella of City Football Group and had been asked to add matches between Melbourne’s A-League rivals Brisbane Roar and Sydney FC to a schedule that had previously focused on top-level European assignments. It was not a particularly easy, or happy, adjustment.

They managed to come up with just two names and had to be reminded, quite sternly, that these tasks were just as pressing as their work for Manchester City’s first team. They were also advised to treat each meeting as if Sheikh Mansour himself were in the room with them.

Fast-forward six years and the centralised team that oversees footballing operations for CFG totals around 100 people. It is a vast operation.

The Athletic has spoken to sources across the globe to help explain the vision for CFG, why the group has chosen certain clubs and leagues to be part of it and how its sides share information and resources.

You can read Part I here. In Part II, we look at how CFG identify, develop, loan and sell players, focus on New York City FC and analyse the commercial aspect of a business whose most valuable asset, Manchester City, is valued by US business magazine Forbes at $2.7 billion (£2 billion).

We also ask what the future is for a business which aims to become football’s version of the all-conquering All Blacks, New Zealand’s national men’s rugby union team…

Recruiting players good enough for Manchester City’s first team, another CFG club or who can be sold for profit

Players signed by — or for — CFG clubs do so under the Emerging Talent programme, which is headed up by Brian Marwood, managing director of global football. While Txiki Begiristain signs players for the Manchester City first team as sporting director, Marwood seals the deals for those who will need to bide their time before ever running out at the Etihad Stadium. In fact, most will never do so — at least, not in a City shirt.

There are three main goals when CFG sign these players: they will either be good enough to play for Pep Guardiola’s first team, for another CFG club or they will be sold for profit. Just one or two big sales are enough to offset the running costs of the smaller CFG clubs, even if most players to pass through the clubs have left for free rather than for profit.

Research by The Athletic has shown 36 per cent of players to have arrived at CFG clubs since 2013 have left for free and the group has made a profit in the transfer market on only 7.5 per cent of those players. CFG clubs have made a total loss of around £420 million in terms of player trading, although only Manchester City are in the red. The other nine CFG clubs have made a net profit of £19 million.

While many players have been bought by Manchester City and sent to Melbourne (19), Spain’s Girona (16) or NYCFC (four), only one player brought into CFG under the Emerging Talent programme to date has made an impression on the City first team: Oleksandr Zinchenko. He was initially loaned to Dutch club PSV Eindhoven, narrowly missed out on a further loan to Italy’s Napoli in the season he achieved his breakthrough and then refused a £15 million domestic move to Wolverhampton Wanderers a year later.

It is rare, to say the least, for one of these players to make the grade. So how can they be convinced that this is the right move for them?

Many players are simply happy to be signed for a club connected with Manchester City. Sources close to several players who have been identified as “emerging talents” point out that a big move is usually too good to turn down. City’s research has also shown players from Japan, for example, are desperate to move to Europe rather than to other Japanese clubs. Agents, likewise, will benefit from being known in their market as the person to do a deal with CFG.

The group is honest with the players, though, telling them that they will be loaned out straight away after signing. Loan moves are often agreed with the third club (inside the CFG stable or not) before the player is even formally under contract. Players and their agents generally appreciate there is a concrete plan in place. CFG’s mooted offer to Lionel Messi, for instance, was three years at Manchester City and then two more with their Major League Soccer side in New York.

Over the years, CFG’s central team has analysed the careers of many successful, big-name players to try to establish a framework that can be replicated. For example, they can look at the career paths taken by Cristiano Ronaldo or Son Heung-min and plot loans for their players along similar lines. How many minutes have they played, and in which leagues? There is a recognition, though, that it can never be an exact science.

The network of players is now quite something.

Angelino, for example, was signed as a youngster for Manchester City, loaned to New York City, then left CFG for PSV Eindhoven. The Spanish full-back then returned to the Manchester City fold via a buy-back clause in 2019 and is now likely to make his current loan at Germany’s RB Leipzig permanent for a fee of around £16 million.

Douglas Luiz was signed from Vasco da Gama in his native Brazil, loaned to Girona for two years and then sold to Aston Villa for £15 million in July 2019 after failing to obtain a British work permit. He cost Manchester City around £10 million, which appears to be about the upper limit for these deals. Pablo Moreno, an 18-year-old signed in July, cost £8 million, and Pedro Porro was £11 million last summer.

Moreno had played for Barcelona at youth level and was signed from Juventus, with Felix Correia, who Manchester City had signed from Sporting Lisbon in the summer of 2019, heading in the opposite direction to Turin. Moreno is now on loan at Girona. Porro was signed by City from Girona and, after choosing to go on loan a few days later to another Spanish club, Valladolid, he is now on loan at Portugal’s Sporting, with whom City have an agreement regarding youth development.

Perhaps the player from this pool with the best chance of making it to the Manchester City first team is Yan Couto, who was signed from Brazilian side Curitiba in July for around £6 million, a figure which could double if he plays five Premier League or Champions League games for City in the next five years. The 18-year-old right-back is hopeful that it will happen as the pathway spelt out to him was different to most of the others: when the move was agreed at the start of this year, he was told he would join up with City for pre-season.

This is as close to the holy grail as an Emerging Talent player can get: City are willing to take a closer look, with a view to including them in their 25-man senior squad. The pandemic put paid to those plans, however, and Couto is on loan at Girona now, too.

These players will be identified as part of the ongoing process of scouting for players who could play for City’s partner clubs. The pool of players good enough to play for Guardiola’s first team is relatively small and therefore stable, although any teenager in Europe to make a senior debut is automatically scouted. But there are thousands and thousands of players across the world who could play for Japan’s Yokohama, Melbourne, New York, Torque in Uruguay and so on. CFG clubs can also ask the central team to help them identify a player to strengthen their squad, and generally speaking, players signed directly to those clubs will simply stay there.

Data has played a big role in the identification of talent in recent years, but there has been a departure from this of late, in contrast to clubs such as Liverpool and Arsenal, and it is understood there had been some conflict between CFG’s data and scouting teams.
Although the CFG scouting team is relatively small, both centrally and at individual clubs, their reports on players are said to be very detailed. That’s partly because City’s partner clubs will see the opposition up close several times a season, and their scouting and match analysis know-how has already been improved by the central resources.

In the early days of the Yokohama partnership, Ayoze Perez, then at Tenerife in Spain but now with Leicester City after a £30 million move from Newcastle United, was suggested by the CFG central team but the Japanese side pressed ahead with their original plans. That is less likely to happen some six years on.

When it comes to Emerging Talent players, Marwood and his team will negotiate with the selling clubs, but players identified solely for a particular partner club will be left to the relevant sporting directors.

While this is about as naked an example as is possible of player trading quite often solely for the purposes of turning a profit, sources close to several players currently in the system, or even those who have been moved on after failing to live up to expectations, speak highly of the detailed nature of CFG’s planning.

For one thing, City’s loans team is considerably bigger even than other clubs with vast loan networks, and staff stay in touch with players and agents several times a week, analysing their performances and discussing their progress. Joleon Lescott, a former City centre-back, looks after CFG’s defenders.

Player trading may not have been a priority in the early days of the CFG, but they have certainly made up for lost time and its importance to the global model will only become more pronounced in the coming years.

The City Football Group in action: A closer look at New York City FC

Ferran Soriano and Manchester City found New York attractive for all the same reasons he and Barcelona were interested in expanding into the US a half-decade earlier.

“Where can you find interesting soccer?” Soriano said in a 2007 interview with The New York Times. “On what level is the local competition? Is there money available to be spent? Are people ready to spend?”

Despite the American public’s relatively low level of interest in MLS, the massive population, ongoing demographic shifts and the high rate of participation in the sport made the country and its No 1 league too alluring. And in New York, one of the planet’s great cities, Manchester City were aiming for the commercial motherlode.

The greater New York area is perhaps the most important media market in the world. It’s also the biggest population centre in the US and corporate dollars are abundant. It’s hard to imagine a better city to move into for a European club looking to grow their global reach.

There were positives on the sporting side, too. An MLS team could become a proving ground for younger pros and coaches already in the CFG structure and provide a potentially fertile academy.

By November 2012, Manchester City representatives were meeting with league executives and then-New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg about a stadium deal at Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s official residence on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

That meeting, which also included members of the Wilpon family, who then owned Major League Baseball’s New York Mets, didn’t lead to any clarity on a stadium. Everyone pressed ahead anyway.

In May 2013, the club brought baseball heavyweights the New York Yankees into the fold as a 20 per cent investor, with the idea that they would help navigate the city’s difficult political landscape to secure a stadium somewhere in its five boroughs. A few days later, MLS announced that Manchester City would start New York City FC as an expansion team in 2015, paying a $100 million expansion fee for the privilege. Of the 15 teams who have entered MLS or been granted expansion slots since 2009, NYCFC is the only one to have done so without an actionable stadium plan.

More than seven years since their expansion announcement and almost six on from their first match, they still don’t have one.

Since its founding, NYCFC’s primary home has been the famous Yankee Stadium.

The arrangement isn’t exactly friendly for the MLS club, who reportedly pay $1 million in rent per home match in the Bronx. The dimensions of the pitch are notoriously tight, something that hurts the team in their quest to play expansive, attractive soccer.

Availability is a major issue, too. The club has had to move several matches over the years, staging an October 2019 play-offs match at Citi Field, home to MLB team the New York Mets, nearly 10 miles away in Queens as it clashed with Yankees games. They have also played a significant portion of their 2020 home schedule at Red Bull Arena, across the Hudson River in neighbouring New Jersey, due to COVID-19-related restrictions at Yankee Stadium, where sightlines for fans are less than ideal.

Pep Guardiola at Yankee Stadium in July 2018 (Photo: Matt McNulty/Manchester City FC via Getty Images)


As a tenant, NYCFC have fewer available revenue streams at home games than they would in their own stadium. They have less sponsorship inventory, no ability to host ancillary events, fewer premium seating options — all of it adds up. Perhaps most importantly, playing home games at Yankee Stadium and shuttling occasionally to Citi Field and Red Bull Arena gives NYCFC a minor-league feel. It’s harder for the public to take them seriously because of this vagabond status.

The team are closer than ever to getting into a new home, however. The New York Times reported in February that NYCFC are nearing an agreement with the city to build a 25,000-seat ground in the South Bronx. It would be part of a larger development not far from Yankee Stadium. The impact of COVID-19, however, means the estimates of construction beginning in 2022 and being completed by 2024 could potentially be pushed back by a year.

Their own stadium in New York would be a major boon to the value of the club, simply based on the real estate appraisal, even if the venue is leased through the city. A soccer-specific ground would likely also increase the visibility and overall interest in NYCFC, as well as add the important match day revenue streams that are so critical to MLS and a key part of operations for the league’s most successful clubs, including Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers and Atlanta United. A stadium would also give NYCFC and CFG a level of permanence it hasn’t had since arriving in town in 2015.

Winning on the field has not been an issue for NYCFC. They have the best regular-season record in MLS over the past five seasons. Translating that success to the champion-deciding end of season play-offs, however, has been more difficult. New York have won just one of the six play-off match-ups in their history.

David Lee, an Englishman who began his career working as the head of performance analysis for Exeter City, is NYCFC’s sporting director. “We haven’t had the success in terms of trophies that we would have wanted,” he tells The Athletic, “but I think there are so many things that have happened that we would consider successful.

“We don’t do this often in our world, but when you actually take a step back and see what’s been accomplished with the level of consistency in the regular season, what we’re achieving in the academy, I think there’s been so many successes to be really, really proud of. And we know that, hopefully, the next is us lifting a trophy.”

The early sporting returns of NYCFC as a part of the CFG web have been somewhat fruitful.

At the 2016 MLS college draft, New York traded for an English winger who had briefly played for one of the club’s local youth affiliates: Jack Harrison. As a boy, Harrison left Manchester United’s academy to attend the prestigious Berkshire School in Massachusetts, roughly midway between New York and Boston. He went on to star for one season at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, then earned a starting role at NYCFC, forming a formidable attack alongside big-name European signings Frank Lampard and David Villa.

After recording 10 goals and three assists in his second season with New York, Harrison made the England Under-21 team and caught the eye of his hometown club, Stoke City. Then still a Premier League club, Stoke offered a deal worth over $15 million (£11.3 million) with add-ons to sign him in January 2018.

“Really the conversation became, ‘OK, how much do we think Jack could be worth?’” says Lee. “‘If we move him through CFG and we manage a loan period for him, do we think he can be worth more than he is in New York right now?’ And I think the decision was yes, we do think he could be more valuable if we help him with the next one to two steps of his pathway.”

NYCFC had to first convince Harrison it was the better move but once he agreed, Manchester City purchased him that same month for a reported fee of around $6 million (£4.25m). Harrison was immediately loaned to second-tier Middlesbrough for the remainder of that season, then went on loan to Leeds United, also in the Championship, for the following campaign. He’s now in his third season on loan with the Yorkshire club; he helped them win promotion last season and has started 10 of their 11 Premier League games so far in this one, missing out only when the league’s rules dictated he had to against parent club City.

More importantly, from CFG’s perspective, Harrison’s value has increased since he moved from New York to England. If Leeds buy him at the end of this season, CFG will likely end up with millions more than it otherwise would if he’d been sold directly to Stoke, now a Championship side, instead.

“That’s one of the fantastic advantages we have here. We knew Jack’s personality inside and out because he was with us for so long, and so there’s a lot less risk … versus somebody from outside the group,” says Lee. “So I think we all felt really confident we could help him to improve as a player, find the right club where he could go and develop and improve and, from the club side, be a valuable asset.”

The player exchange has worked the other way, too, with NYCFC benefitting from players brought to MLS by CFG.

Yangel Herrera was a relatively unknown 19-year-old when he arrived in New York early in 2017 but quickly became a standout player in MLS and is now a regular for Venezuela’s national team and Granada in La Liga, where he is again on loan from Manchester City.

Herrera in Europa League action for Granada earlier this month (Photo: David S. Bustamante/Soccrates/Getty Images)


Herrera first landed on the CFG radar when a scout spotted him at a youth international tournament in Spain in the summer of 2016. NYCFC thought he’d be a good fit for MLS, but his profile blew up after he starred in the 2017 Under-20 World Cup qualifiers. His newly-elevated status meant MLS was no longer all that attractive an option.

But Manchester City changed the equation. The club had a specific plan in mind for Herrera: He would sign for City, then spend the first two seasons of his contract on loan in New York. If he progressed adequately in MLS, he’d move to Europe following the 2018 season. City absorbed some of his salary while he was at NYCFC, decreasing his salary cap hit, a vital part of any deal for an MLS team. Herrera could now be sold for a tidy sum next summer.

As much as Harrison and Herrera illustrate the benefits of CFG connections, the most valuable on-field benefits for CFG remain a work in progress. NYCFC hold homegrown territory rights — the area from which a club holds MLS contract rights over young players — in one of the most talent-rich areas in the United States. The New York-New Jersey region has produced some of the best players to ever turn out for the US national team, including ex-Man City midfielder Claudio Reyna (who was NYCFC sporting director from 2013-19), MLS side Houston Dynamo’s current head coach Tab Ramos, former Manchester United and Everton goalkeeper Tim Howard and ex-national team captain John Harkes.

In recent years, the region has produced several top young professionals, including New York Red Bulls homegrown product and now RB Leipzig midfielder Tyler Adams, French club Lille’s striker Tim Weah and Borussia Dortmund forward Gio Reyna (Claudio’s son), who played for the NYCFC academy but left for the German club on a free transfer without having signed a professional deal after he turned 16.

Despite having played just four MLS games for the first team, 17-year-old defender Joe Scally has already been sold to Borussia Monchengladbach for $2 million, a fee that could rise up to $7 million. He’ll move to Germany on January 1. Another academy product, 20-year-old James Sands, has become a regular starter for New York’s first team.

Like most MLS teams, NYCFC are hoping the success of a youthful group of Americans in Europe, including Adams, Reyna, Chelsea’s Christian Pulisic, Juventus’ Weston McKennie and Bayern Munich’s Chris Richards, as well as the success of Vancouver Whitecaps’ Canada international Alphonso Davies at Bayern, will lead to a sharp increase in valuations for young MLS players.

For a team in a market so flush with talent, it could become a new revenue stream. CFG also has a head-start over other European teams in scouting the up-and-coming players rising through the ranks in the States.

“What the ceiling is… honestly, I don’t know,” says Lee. “I think there’s just such a huge potential in a city this size, with the amount of kids that play soccer here. The market potential for players in New York is massive.”

New York has also become a proving ground for coaches within CFG. When Jason Kreis was fired following the club’s disappointing 2015 debut season, CFG moved Patrick Vieira to NYCFC from his job in charge of Manchester City’s reserve side. After two and a half seasons, he left to take over Nice in France’s top division. Guardiola’s long-time assistant, Domenec Torrent, took over but left following last season. So CFG brought in another coach with whom it was familiar: Ronny Deila, a title winner with Scottish giants Celtic and Norway’s Stromgodset.

This turnover in the coaching staff and lack of continuity may have limited NYCFC’s growth from season to season, but their continued regular-season success also shows the benefit of CFG’s institutional knowledge and ability to hire quality managers.

Even though they’re yet to win a trophy, NYCFC’s sporting operation is respected by executives at other MLS teams. Several pointed to the strength of the CFG scouting network relative to New York’s independent MLS rivals as a significant advantage, albeit while noting that the club don’t have as clear a sporting identity as local rivals, and fellow cog in a global sporting conglomerate, New York Red Bulls. This was a view echoed by sources within the Red Bull group, which sees itself as distinct from CFG because its franchises are defined by a very particular way of playing football.

Of course, just how fast NYCFC can grow and just how much CFG can get out of their New York team are limited by MLS’s strict budget and roster rules. The salary budget, limit on the number of international players and other, more complex rules governing MLS don’t put NYCFC at a disadvantage relative to their domestic competition (all MLS teams play under the same rules, after all), but do mean they can’t field a team full of players such as Herrera, for instance. A team full of marquee names like Villa or Lampard is also out of the question. That’s a factor in capping how much CFG can profit from New York at the box office, via corporate sponsorships and in the transfer ledger.

That’s a bit of a point of frustration for Soriano. He sits on the MLS product strategy committee — a group of owners who play a leading role in determining, among other things, how much teams are allowed to spend on their rosters and how they’re allowed to spend those sums. According to a source, Soriano has over the years consistently pushed other members of the committee to deregulate MLS and bring it more in line with the rest of the footballing world.

“He’ll say, ‘What we’re doing now will not achieve the aims we are setting out’,” says one MLS source. “He has a very good feel when things are limited in scope. He has the ability to say, ‘We won’t be competitive with these salaries; we need to spend more’. He has this overarching view. He has a progressive voice, but he’s also practical. He sees the correlation between spending more and generating more revenue. … He’ll say, ‘No, this is the way, because this is the way it’s done everywhere (else)’.”

NYCFC could stand to make a bit more money and be a lot more relevant. For all of their solid work on the sporting side, the club have yet to make many serious inroads in New York’s sporting consciousness.

Excluding the COVID-19-affected 2020 season that was mostly played without fans, average attendance at home games decreased year-over-year for NYCFC on three of four occasions. Despite finishing with a club-record 64 points, the club averaged an all-time low 21,107 fans per match in 2019. NYCFC are a long way from being the driving force behind their stated mission of building the city of New York “into one of the soccer capitals of the world.”

Of course, CFG might not be too distressed by any of this.

MLS has seen team prices skyrocket over the last decade and CFG can point to the $325 million expansion fee that David Tepper, also the owner of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers, was charged after he was awarded a franchise in Charlotte, North Carolina late last year.

The group is bullish on NYCFC’s prospects. A decade of losses while they rent Yankee Stadium, the $100 million franchise fee and $500 million to build their own ground might mean CFG is $800 million in the red in New York before it starts to make any money. But once that new home is built, using money borrowed while interest rates are at record lows, CFG will have the only soccer-specific stadium and MLS franchise in the five boroughs of America’s biggest, richest city.

“We accept it’s not a great investment over five years. But if you’re looking at 15 years?” a CFG source says. “That’s really smart and the funny thing about football is it will be there in 50 years.”

Dr Stefan Szymanski, professor of sport management at the University of Michigan and co-author of Soccernomics, the best-selling football finance book of all time, is sceptical, however.

“Forbes values NYCFC at $385 million,” Syzmanski tells The Athletic. “If you put $100 million into the NASDAQ in 2012 it would be worth $300 million now, without any of the losses NYCFC has made, which must be about $100 million. Could they sell NYCFC for $400 million?”

Five years into this experiment, NYCFC have shown glimpses of their value, but the real gains are still yet to be realised. A move into a new stadium later this decade — and the benefits that might come from the US co-hosting the 2026 World Cup — could begin to truly fulfil Soriano’s vision of a potentially game-changing American market.

“We’re all obsessed with short-term investment. But there are ones which are 20 to 50 years and maybe longer…”

Asked if he ever thinks it might be better just to run one club, Soriano said: “No, this is the adventure, this is what we’re about. We don’t want 100 clubs. Ten is a good number. It could be 12 or 15, but we want to be the best football organisation in the world.

“We’re long-termers. We want to achieve that today and in 10 years. If you want to be the best football organisation in the world, can you afford to not be in China? You can’t, like any business in the world. So those are positions that make perfect sense.”

They do make sense. But when will they start to make cents?

After six years of losses, including a £195 million deficit in the 2010-11 season which saw Yaya Toure, Mario Balotelli, David Silva and plenty more arrive at the Etihad, Manchester City have been making small profits since 2015. COVID-19 will scupper that, of course. CFG cannot be blamed for that, though, and has continued to show the kind of confidence you would expect from a company backed by people who talk about 50-year “investment horizons”.

Manchester City had a net spend of just under £50 million in the summer transfer window and the group also bought two more clubs, Lommel in Belgium and France’s Troyes, albeit at what one source described as “pandemic prices”.

The underlying point is that the flagship store is, in normal trading conditions, washing its own face. As were Girona during their two recent seasons in La Liga. The new stores, however, in Melbourne, Mumbai, New York and Sichuan are still in expansion mode.

Melbourne’s turnover has almost doubled in five years, NYCFC’s has tripled, while the others are yet to move the needle. Their deficits are dragging the group’s overall results into the red — a combined £330 million for the six years to June 2019 — but City’s contribution to CFG’s revenue has fallen every year from 100 per cent in 2014 to 85 per cent last year.

The positive underlying direction of travel is encouraging for CFG’s accountants and should keep MLS, UEFA and any other spending regulator off its clubs’ backs for the foreseeable future, but it is not what gets CFG’s executives excited. If you ask them when all these punts will really pay off, including the original one in Manchester, they will say they already have and will continue to do so long after half the companies on the stock market have disappeared.

They point to the two sales of stakes in CFG. The first came in 2015, when China Media Capital and the CITIC group paid $400 million (£298 million) for 13 per cent of CFG. And the second came last November, when US-based private equity firm Silver Lake shelled out $500 million (£373 million) for 10 per cent, which diluted Sheikh Mansour’s stake to 77 per cent.

Silver Lake’s investment implied a value of $4.8 billion (£3.6 billion) for CFG, not bad for a group whose most valuable asset, Manchester City, is valued by Forbes at $2.7 billion (£2 billion). As one senior CFG source puts it: “There’s your return, there it is. We can replicate that with all the other clubs and it won’t even take that long.

“We’re all obsessed with short-term investment these days. But there are medium-term profiles and long-term ones, which are 20 to 50 years and maybe longer.”

Dr Szymanski, though, says: “Research shows investments in football have dramatically underperformed financial markets. To claim things will be different this time requires an explanation about what has changed. The fact that investors in clubs are wealthy individuals with money to burn rather than pension funds suggests football — and sport, in general — remains a vanity investment project.

“There’s certainly a case to make that the Sheikh acquired Manchester City at a good moment — the club’s valuation has risen a lot since 2008. But since 2008, the club has reported pre-tax losses of £695 million. If you add the acquisition cost, they’ve put in around £1 billion for an asset valued at £2 billion. If you’d put £1 billion into the NASDAQ in 2008, your investment would have been worth £5.7 billion by the end of 2019. There are subtleties you could add, but the basic picture is clear.

“In the end, I don’t believe this is primarily driven by money but it’s a good strategic investment for a small state vulnerable to much larger neighbours like Iran and Saudi Arabia.”

Manchester City Women and Melbourne City Women take part in the Fatima Bint Mubarak Ladies Sports Academy Challenge in Abu Dhabi in 2017 (Photo: Warren Little/Getty Images)


Roger Bell and John Purcell, co-founders of financial analysis firm Vysyble, go even further.

In a detailed analysis for The Athletic, Bell and Purcell compare CFG’s performance to Manchester United’s, a reasonable benchmark given the clubs’ rivalry and the fact United are listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Based on United’s most recent quarterly report, which looked at the three months to the end of September, Bell and Purcell give England’s biggest club an enterprise value of £2.3 billion, more than £1.4 billion less than CFG’s implied value when Silver Lake invested.

Bell and Purcell believe United’s enterprise value has fallen in recent years as the club has reported economic losses — a failure “to cover all of the costs of doing business” — but CFG’s economic losses have been six times as great at nearly £901 million.

“This suggests that Silver Lake has overpaid by some margin,” they say. “But what were they buying into in the first place?”

If it were their money, the Vysyble duo would want far more clarity on CFG’s “governing objective”. Is it to produce a return on investment? Launch franchises all over the globe? Achieve sporting dominance? Create a marketing platform?

“The issue is perhaps best encapsulated by the phrase, ‘If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there’,” they say.

Enter… the All Blacks?

So where are CFG going and how will anyone know when they get there?

Bell and Purcell aren’t sure.

“Manchester City have won the Premier League but not dominated Europe,” they say. “The economic performance is six times worse than Manchester United’s. Commercial revenues have stalled. The ‘team in every continent’ model has not, as yet, been imitated and does not appear to be feeding commercial incomes to the extent whereby the returns justify the acquisitions. And the cross-fertilisation of players and any ‘sporting ideal’ criteria are best described as unproven.”

Soriano has been on this path longer than most though, and he will not be deterred. When asked during his Leaders Week session earlier this year why CFG sold stakes to the Chinese and Silver Lake, he said it was not because the group was cashing out but because it needs “strategic partners” to get even bigger. It already lists nine commercial partners, including car manufacturer Nissan and EA Sports, the video game producers, among its backers.

Asked what those investors saw in CFG, Soriano said: “You’ll have to ask them, but I know they believe in our view about sports and entertainment.”

The very basic investment thesis is the world is a place with eight billion people, and the majority of them are middle class — that’s different from 30 years ago — and need to be entertained.

“The business of entertainment will grow and sport is a fundamental part of entertainment and football is the number one sport, no question. So the investment will work,” said Soriano. “In football, they tried to find the best platform and they decided it’s us, and I agree! There might be other good platforms to invest in, a single-club platform, but they decided our model is best, it’s the most appropriate way to invest in the growth in the middle-class population, the growth of entertainment, the growth of sport and the growth of football within sports.”

A senior source at CFG explained it to The Athletic like this: “Pep Guardiola is the perfect manager for us because he’s a thinker, he’s a professor, a researcher. He tries things. It’s almost that Silicon Valley approach where you take academia and you commercialise it. That’s what we did with the City Football Academy and why we’ve recreated it. We wanted a series of faculties around the world.”

What’s next, then?

“Football is going to change dramatically in 10 years,” they explain. “I don’t know that we’re going to have 25 clubs — it’s not about that — but what we will be is the go-to place.

“We’ll be the equivalent of the All Blacks with multiple centres around the world, we’ll be a university of football. I can’t say where we’ll be exactly but we’ll be winning silverware, producing players, producing coaches, in men’s and women’s football, and also setting the environment. That’s what I mean about the All Blacks.”

Whether this means the various City sides around the globe are going to start performing a Haka before games is unclear. But what looks certain is that City Football Group is only going to get bigger, faster, smarter and, for those lined up against it, more frightening.

(Top image: Alice Devine/Tifo for The Athletic)

 

[amorphous1234]

Thế thì xếp cho đá bậc thang, mỗi mùa lại kéo thêm 3 trận . Nhưng như vậy giả sử đội top 1 căng sức đá farm điểm một mùa, bỏ xa thằng thứ 2 tầm chục điểm, vào chung kết playoff mà thua thì hơi bạc bẽo.

Mất nhỏ đc lớn thầy. Chứ h như Bayern đá chơi cũng vô địch hoài xem quá nhàm.

 

[Gin Melkior]

Mất nhỏ đc lớn thầy. Chứ h như Bayern đá chơi cũng vô địch hoài xem quá nhàm.

Chơi trừ điểm đội vô địch, ví dụ vô địch liên tiếp 2 mùa thì trừ 5 điểm =

 

[amorphous1234]

Chơi trừ điểm đội vô địch, ví dụ vô địch liên tiếp 2 mùa thì trừ 5 điểm =

Vậy thì bựa quá

 

[Gin Melkior]

Vậy thì bựa quá

Có kiểu game như thế mà khiến cho khả năng vô địch liên tiếp khó hơn

 

[dUrExMaN]

Chơi trừ điểm đội vô địch, ví dụ vô địch liên tiếp 2 mùa thì trừ 5 điểm =

Làm thế này là cổ vũ cho super league sảy ra sớm hơn đó

 

[Nerazzurri]

Conte đã có những phát biểu về ESL vừa qua

"Điều quan trọng nhất, thể thao phải mang tính cộng đồng. Tuy nhiên,UEFA tổ chức toàn bộ các giải đấu và chỉ giành một phần nhỏ số tiền cho các câu lạc bộ. Các câu lạc bộ phải được nhận các khoản tiền xứng đáng hơn. UEFA không đầu tư gì cả, còn các câu lạc bộ phải đầu tư vào rất nhiều."

"First of all, sport must always be meritocratic. But UEFA organizes all the competitions and reserves only a small part of the money to the clubs. The clubs must be rewarded more appropriately. UEFA does not invest anything, the clubs yes" - Conte

Via Fabrizio Romano

 

[El Villano]

Giờ thêm playoff là hợp lý nhất rồi

 

[vietanh797]

Thôi cái Bosman ra đời là tất yếu rồi chứ gián tiếp ảnh hưởng bóng đá gì, ko có Bosman cũng sẽ có Ronaldo Messi Ibra Pogba ruling thôi. Cái chuyện CLB có quyền ko cho phép cầu thủ ra đi nó tào lao rõ ràng như vậy rồi chứ nếu thì gì nữa.

Bảo vệ CLB nhỏ thì tăng chi phí hỗ trợ đào tạo trẻ khi cầu thủ chuyển nhượng, ai lại bắt cá nhân chịu thiệt cho tổ chức.

Mà sắp tới các CLB nhỏ cũng bắt đầu mất ưu thế đào tạo luôn đấy, ai rảnh có thể tham khảo mô hình của thằng CFG aka Man City, hệ thống CLB của nó Âu - Á - Mỹ - Úc có đủ cả, tới khi các ông lớn khác cảm thấy hụt hơi, buộc phải theo con đường bành trướng của ManC thì các lò Ajax, Basel... sớm muộn cũng thành quá khứ vì thua sút tiềm lực tài chính hết.

Với hệ thống CLB trải khắp thế giới thì Man City không chỉ có thể vơ vét sớm các măng non mà còn có thể phát triển các tài năng này theo một lộ trình nhất quán, đó là lợi thế tuyệt đối mà loan system hiện nay không thể so sánh được.

Ông ko hiểu rồi, cái Bosman nó bóp chết CLB nhỏ khiến chúng nó ko có khả năng phát triển, càng ko có tiền mà chi vào đào tạo trẻ mạnh hơn, tiền chảy về CLB lớn.

CLB lớn lại ko muốn chi tiền cho các CLB nhỏ để mua cầu thủ nên tạo ra các youth camps của chính mình, bao tiêu từ khâu đào tạo tới thành phẩm, bán thành phẩm thì ném cho các CLB yếu tại bản xứ để họ tiêu thụ, thành phẩm đem về CLB chính đá đội trẻ rồi ném đi ra các CLB cỡ trung để cày kn qua loan hoặc bán đi nhưng có option buy back, khi đủ kn thì vác về nhà làm cầu thủ của mình. Kết quả là CLB đã lớn lại càng lớn, mà đã nhỏ lại càng nhỏ, bóng đá càng ngày càng nát, cạnh tranh đi dần tới zero.

Thực tế các cty ngày này hay có điều khoản nghiêm cấm nhảy việc khi chấp nhận đào tạo của cty, nhưng bóng đá không cho phép có điều khoản này khiến các CLB nhỏ sau Bosman ra đời chảy máu nghiêm trọng mà không có bất kỳ biện pháp nào ngăn cản tình trạng này dù họ bỏ công sức đào tạo cầu thủ trẻ.

Trước kia bọn nc ngoài từng đề cập Bosman giết CLB nhỏ và các CLB lớn biện hộ là CLB nhỏ có thể thành lò đào tạo trẻ, nhưng bây giờ khi CLB lớn ăn luôn phần đào tạo trẻ thì CLB nhỏ sẽ đi về đâu

 

[HaQuyenn]

nói các clb tài chính thua lỗ, nguồn thu ko có thì chỉ có cách là tái cơ câu, thắt chặt chi tiêu thôi,
vậy thằng DM hét giá Haaland, Sancho quá cứ giữ lấy mà dùng, đợi hết hđ thì qua Bayern miễn phí nhé, Mbappe cũng vậy,
chắc ManC, PSG với túi tiền ko đáy của các ông chủ sẽ ngày một bành trướng thôi,
chắc Real, Barca, Juve, Liver,... sẽ ngày càng tụt hậu quá @@

 

[wolverrin2010]

Thì CLB nhỏ đéo tồn tại, còn thằng lớn chơi với nhau, xem bét nhè càng thích. Cái mất dạy bh là luật CBTC như cái dbrr thế thôi

 

[kevinzheng]

Ông ko hiểu rồi, cái Bosman nó bóp chết CLB nhỏ khiến chúng nó ko có khả năng phát triển, càng ko có tiền mà chi vào đào tạo trẻ mạnh hơn, tiền chảy về CLB lớn.

CLB lớn lại ko muốn chi tiền cho các CLB nhỏ để mua cầu thủ nên tạo ra các youth camps của chính mình, bao tiêu từ khâu đào tạo tới thành phẩm, bán thành phẩm thì ném cho các CLB yếu tại bản xứ để họ tiêu thụ, thành phẩm đem về CLB chính đá đội trẻ rồi ném đi ra các CLB cỡ trung để cày kn qua loan hoặc bán đi nhưng có option buy back, khi đủ kn thì vác về nhà làm cầu thủ của mình. Kết quả là CLB đã lớn lại càng lớn, mà đã nhỏ lại càng nhỏ, bóng đá càng ngày càng nát, cạnh tranh đi dần tới zero.

Thực tế các cty ngày này hay có điều khoản nghiêm cấm nhảy việc khi chấp nhận đào tạo của cty, nhưng bóng đá không cho phép có điều khoản này khiến các CLB nhỏ sau Bosman ra đời chảy máu nghiêm trọng mà không có bất kỳ biện pháp nào ngăn cản tình trạng này dù họ bỏ công sức đào tạo cầu thủ trẻ.

Trước kia bọn nc ngoài từng đề cập Bosman giết CLB nhỏ và các CLB lớn biện hộ là CLB nhỏ có thể thành lò đào tạo trẻ, nhưng bây giờ khi CLB lớn ăn luôn phần đào tạo trẻ thì CLB nhỏ sẽ đi về đâu

Quanh đi quẩn lại vẫn cứ là tham vọng của CLB và tiền. Các clb ngoài việc đào tạo trẻ hoàn toàn có quyền mua cầu thủ ngôi sao để thể hiện tham vọng. Cứ bảo Ajax quanh năm chỉ đào tạo cầu thủ để bán, thế cái tiền bán đấy sao ko gom lại mà mua cầu thủ để thể hiện tham vọng trên đấu trường C1 đi? Hay lại bảo là tiền bán dc xoay vòng đầu tư cho lò đào tạo trẻ là hết luôn? Thế là Ajax nó làm từ thiện quanh năm à?

Chốt lại là tham vọng ko đủ, nguồn lực ko có nên tất nhiên là quanh đi quẩn lại chỉ có thể làm bò cho các CLB to khác nó thịt. Bản thân mấy thằng như Tot, Leicester, quanh năm vẫn bị các CLB lớn hút máu, nhưng BLĐ nó có tham vọng nó vẫn đầu tư cầu thủ khác để chiến đấu tiếp đó thôi?

 

[tuanfox5]

Lan man vcc ra, giờ muốn công bằng thì có mấy giải quốc gia đó, cầu thủ nước nào đá cho nước đó, tinh thần màu cờ sắc áo cao vút, còn bọn CLB đào tạo xong giờ mấy ông siêu sao đó, toàn từ clb nhỏ phát hiện ra, xong qua đội mạnh để phát triển thêm, như thế nó mới là lên bóng đá chuyên nghiệp. Giờ muốn công bằng hơn, đơn giản là học theo bọn EPL ý, chia tiền bản quyền đều nhau, xong áp dụng luật CBTC thật gắt vào, thì dù cách biệt giữa đội yếu và đội mạnh là rất nhiều, thì đội yếu vẫn có nguồn tiền tương đối ổn để bù đắp chi tiêu.