Is City on the road to success?

Manchester City was recently bought by the Abu Dhabi Group, an investment vehicle of the emirate’s royal family. This event is similar to that when Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea and everybody is wondering if Manchester City is on the way to become one of the giants of English football.

The Abu Dhabi group is an Arab consortium controlled by the Abu Dhabi ruling dynasty Al Nahyan (rules Abu Dhabi since 18th century). Their goal is to promote the emirate and make contacts with Western countries and their taking over of Manchester City can be seen as another business move. They want to show the World that they are normal people who love football and improve their current image. Their wealth is enormous and difficult to estimate and no doubt they will invest considerable sum into the club.

The consortium is led by Sheikh Mansour, the member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling dynasty, whose associate Sulaiman Al Fahim created a lot of controversy when these two appeared in England. He started bragging about deep pockets and talking about fantasy football but it now seems that things have settled down a bit. In an open letter to Manchester City fans, Sheikh Mansour stressed loyalty to manager Mark Hughes and supported the club’s policy of recruiting players from their own academy among other things. This was probably an attempt to undo the damage made by his associate and win over some of the fans. If he fulfills his promises the fans will have nothing to worry about. On top of that he has promised 300 million pounds over the next three years for new players.

At the beginning of their reign the new owners have managed to buy one star player Robinho and they hope that others will follow. However, you have question Brazilian’s motives when he leaves the club like Real Madrid and transfers to one average English club solely for the money. I don’t believe there are many players who will do such a thing, which is why Hughes will have problems attracting star players despite the money at his disposal. There have been rumours that City would try to buy players like Fabregas, Ronaldo, Torres and Villa among others, but do you really think that these players will give up the chance to play top level football and transfer to the club that is still not among the best in England.

The club has one of the best youth academies in England and players like Micah Richards, Shaun Wright-Philips, Michael Johnson and Stephen Ireland have progressed through the youth ranks. With the expected arrival of new players new academy graduates will face much tougher task to progress to the first team and that will be a big mistake. Just look at Chelsea now, have you heard of any player from their youth academy who made it to the first team since Abramovich took over.

The best players in the World will surely not come to Manchester City and the club will buy a lot of players anyway, which will create a bad atmosphere in the team. The new owners will eventually leave and when that happens, the club will be in pieces, unable to pay big wage bills and probably with ruined youth academy, which is why I believe that City will not be a big club, at least not with these owners.

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