Sportswash! - Let’s oil stare at Manchester City!

[leviramsey]

It's the same business plan as everywhere else in Abu Dhabi. They have oil now. Due to this they have money now. They won't have oil in a few decades. Due to that, they won't have money in a few decades. Spend money now, buy businesses so that they will support you in later years. Whereas Dubai threw money at stupid buildings and hoped that tourism would drive from the "wow factor", the Sheikh's thing is sport. He (and especially our Chairman, Khaldoon, who owns 5% of Ferrari) was instrumental to bringing in the Abu Dhabi GP. Same with the yacht race, the World Club Cup, and the horse race that's meant to be big over there. They are using sports branding to make money and raise the profile of their Emirate, and it seems to work somewhat, as I knew nothing about the place before they took over.

tbf, sport isn't a great business (largely because there's not a lot of revenue in it for the individual clubs and most of that goes straight back out in wages)... Even Real Madrid, or Man Utd, or the New York Yankees have turnover that's on par with a handful of Wal-Marts (and all of those clubs operating income that's far dwarfed by those Wal-Marts).

[R.I.C.O.]

That banner on the last page is so small time and embarassing. Talk about bending over backwards and taking it up the arse. I wonder how many will thank him in 3 years time when ticket prices have gone up by stupid amounts and the stadium is devoid of any atmosphere, largely full of happy-clapping tourists? Furthermore, they haven't won jack shit yet so there is nothing really to be thankful of!

"There's a circus in the town"

[bickster]

It's the same business plan as everywhere else in Abu Dhabi. They have oil now. Due to this they have money now. They won't have oil in a few decades. Due to that, they won't have money in a few decades. Spend money now, buy businesses so that they will support you in later years. Whereas Dubai threw money at stupid buildings and hoped that tourism would drive from the "wow factor", the Sheikh's thing is sport. He (and especially our Chairman, Khaldoon, who owns 5% of Ferrari) was instrumental to bringing in the Abu Dhabi GP. Same with the yacht race, the World Club Cup, and the horse race that's meant to be big over there. They are using sports branding to make money and raise the profile of their Emirate, and it seems to work somewhat, as I knew nothing about the place before they took over.

tbf, sport isn't a great business (largely because there's not a lot of revenue in it for the individual clubs and most of that goes straight back out in wages)... Even Real Madrid, or Man Utd, or the New York Yankees have turnover that's on par with a handful of Wal-Marts (and all of those clubs operating income that's far dwarfed by those Wal-Marts).

And Abu Dhabi have about a century of oil reserves whereas Dubai never really had much oil in the first place and will run out in 20 years (though they have discovered a new offshore field this year)

[R.I.C.O.]

I wonder what the ratio of turnover is at that place compared to player wages?

They must be paying out around double or even triple what they earn by tickets/sponsorship etc on wages alone. I wonder what their total annual wage bill is as of this summer? It has to be £ 100m plus with Barry, Adebayor, Y & K Toure, Bridge, Robinho, Silva, Tevez etc all being paid over £100k (well over in some cases) and players like Wright-Phillips, Lescott, Bellamy, Santa Cruz etc earning close to that amount.

They can't be bringing in more than £ 50m a year, surely. I'd love to see what losses they made, they must dwarf even Chelsea's, probably biblically.

What a shining example to the world!

[The_Rev]

They could just sponsor themselves with a spectacularly rich deal to get around those rules, no?

[spiezels]

That banner on the last page is so small time and embarassing. Talk about bending over backwards and taking it up the arse. I wonder how many will thank him in 3 years time when ticket prices have gone up by stupid amounts and the stadium is devoid of any atmosphere, largely full of happy-clapping tourists? Furthermore, they haven't won jack shit yet so there is nothing really to be thankful of!

"There's a circus in the town"

That is exactly what me and my bro said when we went the game last season.

And that Ireland is a superman shite.

We were embarrassed tbh.

When a team is so universally disliked you'd think they'd make an effort to have some class... or something.

[villa4europe]

They could just sponsor themselves with a spectacularly rich deal to get around those rules, no?

Doesnt roman do that to a russian team cos you arent allowed to own 2 teams so he sponsors one for huge amounts instead

And surely it would piss on platini's chips with this transfer budget set by income, some sheik pays £50m for an advertising board at city!

[Damocles]

Etihad Airways is connected to our owner in some way, as are our new sponsors, Ferrostaal and the Abu Dhabi Tourist Board. We're supposed to be announcing some big new deals soon too, he isn't daft the Sheikh.

That banner on the last page is so small time and embarassing. Talk about bending over backwards and taking it up the arse. I wonder how many will thank him in 3 years time when ticket prices have gone up by stupid amounts and the stadium is devoid of any atmosphere, largely full of happy-clapping tourists? Furthermore, they haven't won jack shit yet so there is nothing really to be thankful of!

The Sheikh has been the owner for two years, and we still have some of the cheapest season tickets in the land. The whole stadium has just been completely rearranged to create a better atmosphere, with all of the 'kids/old people/families' now going in the larger North Stand and all of the singing lads moving to the rest of the ground.

Besides all of this, as I'm starting to expect from some people on here, you don't possess enough knowledge to comment. The "Manchester Thanks You" banner isn't because we are suddenly rich, or that he's buying all these players. Unlike United, who have always been a nomadic club, City have always had it's root as the peoples club of Manchester, and a common thing heard is that all footy fans in Manchester are blue (not really the true, but based in it).

We have always had an identity in the city around us, and have always been a huge part of the community, the schools, etc.

This stems back to when we first were founded, by a vicar as something for the local tearaway youths to do in the late 19th century. We've always been working in the local area, and our City In The Community program has won award after award; the guy who runs it was recently given an MBE actually.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, before the takeover that made Peter Swales Chairman in the 70's, we have always been a middling to successful club. Sometimes winning the big one, but we've picked up FA Cups before, League Cups and have been up there or thereabouts in terms of both league position and attendances.

Peter Swales was the worse thing to happen to our club. He took the team that had just won the double, sold all of it's superstars for next to no money, then paid ridiculous prices for players simply because United wanted them. That's not a joke either, that's actually the reason he gave for signing players, so "them across the road couldn't have them". In addition to this, he **** about our greatest ever manager, Joe Mercer and appointed his egotistical assistant, Malcolm Allison, who also didn't help much. Swales took us from a healthy club, that was winning things to a club facing bankruptcy.

Former City hero Franny Lee had made himself some money selling bog roll after he finished playing (how apt!), so he bought the club. Then he saw the extent of the damage, though it doesn't sound bad now, we were £20m in debt. He didn't have that type of money, but to make matters far, far worse, he appointed constant failure Alan Ball as manager, and that's when the freefall really started.

The brother of the Chief Exec of Manchester City Council then took over him as we were in the Second Division and hugely in debt. He did well enough to start the negotiation with the Council and Sport England over the CoM stadium, which really helped us debt wise. However, he fell out with major investor John Wardle over the transfer of Robbie Fowler and later resigned.

John Wardle of JD Sports chain took over, and the tide was pretty much against him by now. The debts from the past were never really settled to any degree, and even with the stadium move, we were in trouble. We have thrown money away on expensive flops such as Fowler, etc, for years to keep us in the Premiership instead of servicing the debt. The thinking was that higher revenues now, means that we could eventually pay our debts, as our Academy was really starting to produce now thanks to Keegan and his large investment in it.

Obviously though, this was just pissing in to the wind, and one of our darkest days happened when we were sold to Shinawatra. The promise is that Shinawatra would clear the debts and as a billionaire, would invest in the team. With us using our Academy now, surviving in the Prem due to a mixture of them and great little imports such as Mpenza, we thought that our future was bright.

Unfortunately, my biggest mistake was one of lack of research. When I was told we were taken by him, I thought "Oh good, just some Thai billionaire, great! All those Thai guys are all billionaires!" or some other ridiculous stereotype not unlike the "Arab playboy" image some have of the Sheikh. As the weeks went by, it was becoming more and more apparent that Shinawatra wasn't all that he seemed, culminating in an expose by the Daily Telegraph that labelled him as a human rights abuser of the worst kind, and a guy who was basically using us for political ambition. I've been crushed many times by City, but never quite as hard as this, and felt pretty guilty for putting money in his pocket. It also turned out that City had surpassed themselves once again, and found the only penniless billionaire on the planet. Shinawatra had no money, our debts were worst than ever and we were hanging by a thread. I don't mean we were heading for administration, no administrator on the planet would consider us a viable business, we were about to be closed down for good. The club I've followed my whole life, had been such a great part of the community and in particularly of my life as a person was about to disappear into thin air. We as fans were truly at our wits end, and I remember waking up every day feeling sick before I loaded up BBC News, expecting to see the "Man City Close Down" headline.

Then, out of absolutely nowhere, we bought Wright Phillips for £9m and Vincent Kompany for £6m. I did remember thinking "how the **** can we afford THAT", and thinking that we had finally lost our minds and were going out with a bang. Then, again out of nowhere, with no rumours beforehand, it was announced that we had been taken over by Abu Dhabi United Group. I didn't make the same mistake as I did with Shinawatra, I looked into these properly and looked into the Sheikh, until I was happy that he had money and wasn't a war criminal. Happily, he has money. LOTS of money. Then little things started happening around the club, changes in infrastructure, better training machines, better organisation, better website, etc. All of this would mean nothing to me, but one of the absolute tenets of the Sheikh's ownership has been how fan orientated it has been. These guys truly get it, in terms of how we look at the club, and the level of communication between the fans and the club has never been higher. Gary Cooke isn't just our distant CEO we see on TV, he comes to Bluemoon meetups and gets a round in. The club are always asking the internet forums and bloggers, the supporters clubs, and even random guys who go into the shop to test their latest stuff or to ask what they think about a new policy.

It's easy for other fans to sit on top of their tower and snipe that "the Arabs will do this" or "the banner is small time". I don't care, it's not there to impress you. We are there as fans of this club every day, and we have experienced the rollercoaster of that support. It's there to remind us as fans exactly what this new owner has done for us. He's literally saved our lives, he's made the fans the central part of the club and expanded even more into helping the local area, he's introduced a brand new level of communication between us, and is willing to listen to our desires over things like the bar staff at half time, the beer we sell, the roof on the ticket office, the price/loyalty points scheme of certain games. People forget that last season we had quite a few matches where we sold tickets at £5 for kids and £10 for adults in the League Cup. This wasn't some thing that they put in at the last minute, this was announced weeks before the LC tickets went on sale. We've had fan days in close season, where kids go to the ground, get their facepainted, play at the fair, watch the players train and get some autographs. This was entirely free. Our preseason games are shown live, for free, on our website in HD quality.

As I say, it's easy to sit back on your stereotypical view of what's happening at City and bark off some remarks about exactly what our owners will do. But unless you lived the life, you cannot possibly understand how important that banner is.

[Maradona10]

Damocles, just a question with your research did you look into Sharia Law? and whether this law is carried out in Abu Dhabi.

[R.I.C.O.]

Well Villa were'nt exactly in a great state towards the end of the Ellis years, and Randy Lerner has transformed many areas of the club for the better, but we haven't been unfurling banners around the stadium "thanking" him for that. Lerner doesn't need our appreciation, he's not in it as a vanity project.

In any case, we have more class than that.

8)

[P3te]

they haven't won jack shit yet so there is nothing really to be thankful of!

so we've nothing to be thankful to randy for?

[R.I.C.O.]

they haven't won jack shit yet so there is nothing really to be thankful of!

so we've nothing to be thankful to randy for?

Not really yet, no. Certainly not enough to unfurl a huge banner saying "Birmingham Thanks You".

[P3te]

they haven't won jack shit yet so there is nothing really to be thankful of!

so we've nothing to be thankful to randy for?

Not really yet, no. Certainly not enough to unfurl a huge banner saying "Birmingham Thanks You".

what if a group of people got together and decided they wanted to show their appreciation for him with a banner? would that be small time or devoid of class?

like booing our own players off?

[Maradona10]

I think chanting his name would have been better but hey BlueMoon know what's best.

[Damocles]

Damocles, just a question with your research did you look into Sharia Law? and whether this law is carried out in Abu Dhabi.

Without starting a political thread, yes. Sharia courts in Abu Dhabi are only available to Muslims, so you actually have to believe in Sharia Law to be tried under it.

Well Villa were'nt exactly in a great state towards the end of the Ellis years, and Randy Lerner has transformed many areas of the club for the better, but we haven't been unfurling banners around the stadium "thanking" him for that. Lerner doesn't need our appreciation, he's not in it as a vanity project.

Neither's the Sheikh, as has been mentioned. I'm sure that Villa weren't in a great state towards the end of the Ellis, but I'm also pretty sure that you weren't 18 days away from extinction.

Besides, I have no idea how exactly any group of football fans can be considered classy. Each club has its dickheads and has its intellectuals. The idea of 'class' amongst a group of fans is a myth. I can point to the fact that one of our fans was injured and was in a coma in Germany after falling down stairs at a train station, and our club paid all of his medical bills, and supported his young family. That's classy.

Then I can point to the Munich songs that are sometimes heard when we play United as not classy.

It's just another example of football fans trying to gain oneupmanship with others. "We have more class", "we have more history", "we have more money" are all entirely meaningless things. Tell me what you've done on the pitch and in your community over the last decade.

[Damocles]

I think chanting his name would have been better but hey BlueMoon know what's best.

We do that too.

Speaking of sponsorship, we've just heard over on BM that we've got a new sponsor in Aabar. This is a company that was setup by ADIA (who the Sheikh is on the board of) and Mubadala (that our Chairman is Chairman of). They also own the IPIC, which is the big money spender over there, chaired by Sheikh Mansour. The business structure of that place is just unbelievably thick and the Sheikh/Khaldoon seem to have invested in everything in the world.

[JMilnereatsnails]

Invested in everything in the world??

I've told you a million times, don't exaggerate.

[R.I.C.O.]

It'll be hilarious when this circus goes tits up.

Nepotistic family dynasty pissing money up the wall on a totally unsustainable project. You may win a couple of trophies along the way and catch up with Man Utd a bit (and be honest, this is all this is about really, isn't it) but you will never overtake them, they grew too big during the early Sky years and have the worldwide marketing gig wrapped up.

Even though he's not a truly "self made man", and perhaps he had a little help from what his father had built over the years but at least Randy knows what good business sense is. Your lot got to where they are just by family association.

Man City will never be self-sustaining, just in the same way Chelsea will collapse once Roman gets bored and invests in something else. The entire U.A.E economy is literally built on sand. I still would like to be supporting Aston Villa in 50 years time, I wouldnt be surprised if City have gone bust by then. I'd take long term organic growth over a flash in the pan any day of the week. See its not really your club any more, its theirs.

All my opinion of course, I suppose you will pull out some link saying how virtuous and noble the good "Shiekh" is.

Football as we know it needs a serious collapse, its becoming obscene.

[Damocles]

I'm pretty sure that's the most unintentionally hilarious post I've read on here.

The UAE's economy is built on sand? No mate, it's built on money. TRILLIONS of dollars worth of it.

The comments about United and ours/theirs show you up as a wind up anyway, so I'll leave it as I get the feeling that this will result in me getting banned somewhere down the line.

[The_Rev]

Abu Dhabi is by far the richest Emirate in the UAE. It's not as flashy as Dubai, they certainly havent spent as much money on skyscrapers as Dubai, but they have something like 95% of the oil reserves of the UAE. They will still be selling oil when our grandkids are pushing up daisies, so the current generation of Man City fans dont have to worry about the money running out.