Man City executive believes City Football Group is not ‘disruptive’ to the sport

Manchester City CEO Ferran Soriano has provided insight into City Football Group’s strategies to garner success across the football landscape.

Now, more than ever, City Football Group (CFG) appear to be benefitting from their prolific multi-club model. Just two years after affiliate club New York City FC won their respective league title, fellow CFG club Girona find themselves top of LaLiga.

The merits of a multi-club ownership scheme have been hotly debated since the emergence of groups like CFG, and the Red Bull Football Group. But Manchester City CEO Ferran Soriano believes running such an organisation requires a certain type of balance.

“We have not applied new technology or disruptive ideas,” Soriano said recently at Tech Spirit Barcelona 2023.

“We have applied the logic of other industries to the football sector. The key to our success is to have a balance between entertainment and player development.

“Clubs in South America take a lot of players and specialise in increasing the market value until the players have to make the jump to other leagues.

“It happened to us with Taty Castellanos. He couldn’t grow any more in Uruguay and we sent him to the United States. From there, to Girona and then we sold him to Lazio.”

Soriano believes they have found the balance between player development and business, but it is a fine line to walk.

For their partner clubs however, the slow feeding of young players through the system is starting to prove a worthy tactic.

The City Football Group only continue to grow, now with clubs in the United States, Australia, India, Japan, Spain, Brazil, Uruguay, China, Belgium, France and Italy.