Girona joins the CFG

Skoorb

Skoorb

Alert Team
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.

Welcome to the family.

Standby for UEFA investigations as they get their knickers in a twist.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/aug/23/manchester-city-buy-girona-spanish-club
 
Does anyone recall if there was any issue with that Italian family owning Udinese, Granada and Watford at the same time?

Does the fact that we don't own a controlling share impact on conflict of interest should both City and Girona qualify for the same European competition?
 
Yup, the fact we own less than 50% means we are not seen as having a controlling interest from UEFA's perspective, I believe
 
Can't see any downside at the moment Buzz.

We get to send our youth players there to get valuable experience playing in a top league.

As with anything though time will tell whether it was a good move or not.
 
As there is no 'B team' structure in UK, it's always been a risk sending our players out on loan to get valuable first team experience, as we can't control the style of play or opportunities as well as we should be able to if we part own the club. We can't ask for much better than a club in the top flight in Spain, playing a similar style of football to us. They in turn, get a regular supply of our best young talent for (next to) no cost. Seems like a win, win to me.
 
Regarding 'B' teams, something that's been irking me for some time is the praise Slur Alex gets for how he developed youth, the main reason he was able to do this was because he had his band of lackeys managing mid table PL clubs and so when he sent his youth prospects on loan they would be guaranteed to get a huge chunk of playing time, which gave them the experience they needed at senior level to then play as decent back ups to his team when the time came. Nobody else had this luxury and it's something that's never highlighted.

The closest thing we can get to that type of setup where your youth are guaranteed playing time at senior level is this.
 
Remember when son of Satan was managing at Preston. When Preston sacked him, whisky-nose pulled his loan players out and if I remember, they struggled after that.



 
I wonder how the Girona fans feel about it. Imagine if back in the day before we were rich/succesful we had become part of a stable of clubs, being sent talent by the parent club who we enjoyed and developed for a year before watching them go on to become household names elsewhere (or not). Is the reason our youth doesn't go on loan to other PL clubs because like PG they won't play them, results and a no risk strategy being the order of the day?

I can see there are plusses - but then again I'm old school and if i had my way there'd still be the Central league where players wore black boots and jerseys with 1 - 11 on the back.

 
A valid point Mr 'tache, and not sure how I would feel about it if it were us. Though as B'Dubz mentions above, we could ask fans of one of Sluralix feeder teams how it feels/felt :008:
I think the culture is slightly different in Spain also, in that until very recently the TV deal there heavily favoured Barca/Real, so most clubs did and still do rely on loan players. There are no 'parachute' payments to relegated clubs either, so those in the lower half tend to have loan players so that they can offload them if they get relegated.
 
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