In the good old days, football clubs were owned by a local entrepreneur - a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker. No longer. Nowadays, it is global business. The Guardian reports:
Manchester City’s parent company, the City Football Group, has made Girona the sixth club of its widening portfolio, after confirming a deal to purchase a major stake in the newly promoted Spanish side.
The terms give City a 44.3% share and an identical holding to Girona Football Group, the agency owned by the City manager Pep Guardiola’s brother Pere. The remaining stake is owned by a Girona fans’ association.
Girona are playing in La Liga for the first time in their 87-year history after promotion last season, having reached the play-offs in three of the previous four campaigns. The clubs said negotiations began last year and that Girona’s “on- and off-field potential, together with a positive academy track record” played a significant part in bringing the deal to fruition.
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Since Sheikh Mansour bought City in September 2008 his Abu Dhabi-based CFG has acquired the start-up MLS franchise New York City FC, the Australian A-League side Melbourne City, Japan’s Yokohama F Marinos, Club Atlético Torque in Uruguay, and now Girona.
It means CFG is represented in the Premier League and La Liga, Europe’s richest, as well as on four other continents: Oceania, Asia, North America and South America. City are also two years into a five-year agreement with NAC Breda that involves their players being loaned to the Dutch club.
Is this a good thing? I doubt it.
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