Mansour buys Melbourne Heart

The Atletico Madrid borned in 1903 as a branch of the Athletic Bilbao ( same colours and same name ), but then it has become more important. I think that the same thing can happen to the NYCFC in the next years.

 

Interesting precedent, but I wonder if this isn't something altogether different.

Manchester City, Red Bull, and to a lesser degree, Chivas seem to be looking towards a business more common in motorsports.

Racing teams sponsor numerous outlets with very similar marketing - sometimes with drivers competing against each other.

This will be fascinating to watch, but I'm not sure that football fans and F1 fans are the same beast.
They seem to love their sport in very different ways. - And not just the "against modern football" types

Just get the stadium built, and don't treat anybody like the junior varsity. Please

 

LOL

Onion never explained why ManC is going to the extremes that they've gone to just to create a farm team.

- $100 million just to start the team
- Building a stadium in the city proper (something the NFL even gave up on)
- Stealing away the best AMERICAN coach in the league
- Hiring an American Director of Soccer.

Why do all that?

Why not:

-Buy a cheap, smaller club like Columbus and rename them? Or buy the rights to a team in a smaller market?
- Not bother to build a stadium but just bum off of some other organization (like that actual farm team, Chivas USA does)
-Or build a stadium in Jersey. Much cheaper and easier to do
- Why not put one of ManC's assistant coaches as the manager to keep continuity?

I don't want to hear "bububububu....he just likes to spend money!" for the reason to go through all the headaches and face all the challenges that they've brought on themselves to make this club something truly special. Your logic is inconsistent. You tell me its all a ploy for ManC's benefit but then you tell me he just likes to blow cash. Wouldn't ManC be served best, if this were a farm team, if they just went ahead and built a stadium in Jersey and saved the cash? $400 million vs. $250 million. Could be a striker or two for $150 million, ya know? A stadium in Jersey would meet the needs of a farm team just as much.

Face it, you just got eviscerated.

 

Yes, but this club is called NYCFC ( not Man City USA ), instead the other are Chivas USA, Red Bulls NY ( NJ ), Red Bulls Salisburg...

 

My Italian friend,

the branding is in the "City" moniker. Manchester CITY. New York CITY. Melbourne CITY.

 

OK, therefore also Stock City, Bristol City, Hull City, Norwich City, Cardiff City, Swansea City, Leicester City are a Man City brand

 

I hope that the next team will be the New Delhi City for the growth of the Indian football ( the Indian subcontinent can be very interesting for the City brand ).

 

Oh boy....

 

It didn´t take long for this thread to become somewhat derailed, or rather..The subject is not really about Melbourne anymore but about City Football Group acting like a global holding company with branches in Manchester, New York and Melbourne
And the funny thing is that this was actually the FC Barcelona masterplan from 2005 that never got started because of all the political battles inside the club.
Will other big boys follow suit or is it just about soccer clubs taking notice how entities like Anschutz and Red Bull have stolen a march on them and are trying to catch up?

Will the future see more and more clubs "affiliated" with each other as connections between say DC Utd and Inter grows? Will less powerful clubs go the way of airlines and form alliances of some kind to combat the rise of global entities?
And will we ever get some decent music played before games at the stadiums..

 

I think what some people here are putting in the wrong light is the brand thingy! The City guys are trying to set up a network of clubs promoting the City brand NOT the Manchester City brand! Manchester City just happened to be the first team, they purchased (adopting their name) and obviously they are playing a pretty significant role in what is considered the best league in the world, so it would be stupid not to tap into existing infrastructure there!

It might sound quite odd, but if you ask me, out of all the clubs so far NYCFC will be the most genuine one out of the City clubs, because this one is started by the guys behind "City" from scratch. No previous history, supporters, culture to erase/change/deal with. Here they can really develop whatever they want to be the true City identity in maybe the most famous city in the world. I really don't think they are trying to promote Manchester City with their approach but to simply use Man City infrastructure to set up their City brand around the world and they would be stupid not to.

Personally, I don't care if they use skyblue colors as part of their City identity for all the teams (even though, for Melbourne that would kinda suck now), but I sure do hope that every City team will at least get an individual crest with maybe just one common element and that every team will be well integrated into and respect local culture aside from whatever is considered the "City culture"!

As for Melbourne Heart (and the A-League for that matter) I think that's really good news! I think it's a brilliant idea to keep "Heart" as a nickname even if the club will be renamed to "City" and maybe they can incorporate a heart in a most likely coming new crest as an appreciation of the (admittedly very short) history so far! The only worry I have is the possible change of team colors. Other than that, I think they will be a good team to hate for the rest of the league with their billionaire organisation background (especially a nice less likeable counterpart to teams like the Western Sydney Wanderers for example) and hopefully this will help the team and the league to grow!

 

Somebody does know what is exactly this City Football Group ?

 

CFG is a London based holding company that got MCFC, NYCFC and Melbourne Heart FC to look after.. It was created just a year ago.

 

The Irony is that if South Melbourne purchased the license the Heart name would have been kept on and the red/white colors as they were the original SM colours, it would have been a genuine joining of forces.

Melbourne Heart as we know it will be dead at the end of the season, seems to be very little opposition from the current fanbase, most are happy for the name to be changed already, Man City arent dumb they will see that this a 4 year old club thats been struggling where nobody in Melbourne really cares for its identity. This will give them the green light to do as they please, they wont be keeping on any nicknames or red/white colors, brand city have seen a perfect opportunity to effectively take over a club that very little people care for....imagine if they bought out Melbourne Victory and tried to remove the Victory....the place would go into meltdown! A very clever and wise purchase, Melbourne City will be strutting around in sky blue kits next season, very little doubt about that.

 

South Melbourne FC must have used blue and white for about 50 years now.
So colorwise it´s hardly a difference to MCFC

 

What are its real goals ?

 

Totally agree, Gaboo.
Look I realize NYCFC and MelCFC will be de facto development teams to begin with. But is that City's doing or the leagues in which they compete in?

This is the belief that, at least in America, really bothers people. The belief that someone is "using" our top league as a development league but I feel that's more on our league for constraining them.

I believe City will try to build dominate teams as far as the leagues will allow.

 

Basically just to hold the entities separate I think, say that NYCFC have to spend $500m to get a stadium worth $400m, MCFC Ltd would have a meltdown if they had to show it as them losing $100m on some overseas venture because it would affect their financial report to Uefa and they would scream blue murder if they have to pay for everything Melbourne and NYCFC gets up to

So much better that CFG takes on liabilities and such, the money will come from ADUG anyway.

 

Top quality is always worth a premium, that´s where they might make a profit eventually.. When the league gets better and you got a team in a good market with a nice infrastructure you are home and dry.
The flipside is of course that you must spend heavily on infrastructure and the first team in the beginning and also really make sure that the league gets better by focusing on stuff like youth academies and such.. Hence I expect that we´ll hear a lot about youth soccer soon.

 

Actu

Actually i did, in pretty great detail...but your nazi mod person here deleted the entire post because he was upset that some people wouldn't be able to keep their cool by me posting the reasons.

You win the internet, congrats. You and Sport Billy.

 

No you didn't. You just said bububu I'm sure I can't convince you but there are reasons! And kept moving on.

I'm sure in your mind that seems like in "great detail" but in reality it was laughable

 

To be honest CFG have hardly done anything yet.. The change is in the team itself but perhaps because of the takeover.