City racing into Virgin territory as £200million takeover moves closer

By Ian Ladyman for the Daily Mail Updated:

Not content with taking on Manchester United, the Barclays Premier League and the rest of Europe, it appears the new Manchester City want to take on Richard Branson as well.

As the ADUG group backed by the Abu Dhabi royal family continue to move closer to a £200million takeover of City, the scale of their ambition has raised eyebrows.

The rather eccentric frontman Dr Sulaiman al Fahim has already spoken boldly of buying Cristiano Ronaldo from United as well as luring a whole fantasy football team of European stars to Eastlands.

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Now it appears that City's new backers want to charge head first into the lucrative business of football club 'branding', outlining a desire to become the 'Virgin of Asia'.

Plans revealed on Sunday on the ArabianBusiness.com website that ADUG have been using to leak their intentions to the Western world tell how City will have their own fast food outlets, phone cards, energy drinks and even sky blue Mini Cooper cars and scooters in years to come.

ADUG's plans, outlined in a leaked document titled A New Model for Partnership in Football, state that City 'are moving beyond traditional marketing approaches to create a new brand that takes the best of the club but provides unprecedented value to our partners.'


In short, Al Fahim and his associates intend to paint the world sky blue as quickly as possible and if the idea of club credit cards and phone cards is hardly revolutionary, talk of a 'City Power' energy drink and a high street fast food chain called 'City Eating' would certainly break new ground.

City's target audience will be the mass markets of the Far East and a source close to ADUG said: 'The document was prepared before the takeover, but obviously was a key part in the decision to buy the club, as it shows in great detail just what can be done.'

City will return to the rather mundane business of actually playing football on Saturday when they host Chelsea in the Premier League.

Having seemingly set out to shock in the wake of the takeover news last week, it was inevitable that some of Dr Al Fahim's would prompt reaction and United chief executive David Gill was happy to rise to the Ronaldo bait.

When asked about the possibility of a £135m City bid for Ronaldo, Gill said: 'It was an interesting comment, I think it's a fan's-type comment.

'I think we will treat that with a pinch of salt. That is a fantastic amount of money and would turn the industry upside down so I can't believe he is serious at those sorts of levels.

'Ultimately we would discuss any offer with Alex (Ferguson) and the owners. But we are not in the market to sell our best players.'


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