Manchester City’s visit to SA could be very good business

Since Man City were taken over by Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan and his Abu Dhabi Investment Group they are widely regarded as the richest team in the world. They are backed by the Emirate’s vast oil wealth which is bottomless. They will be Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs opponents in this year’s annual Vodacom Challenge. City will definitely use the close season to build a team which matches their huge ambitions.

They want to be a global superpower and they want it to happen fast. More interestingly they do not put limits on how much they are prepared to spend as we saw with their approximately 100 million pound bid for the Brazilian superstar Kaka.

So as much as they will be conditioning their team for the demands of the next English Premiership season they will be on the hunt for potential signings. Therefore it is very important that the local players who will participate put their best feet forward. Clubs must explain to their players the importance of impressing in sporting times for the financial benefit of both the players and the potential selling club.

Players such as Mbulelo Mabizela, Steven Pienaar and Peter Ndhlovu were signed by overseas teams after impressing in such games against visiting teams. So the clubs and players will benefit from the gate-takings, prizemoney, merchandising, TV revenue and possibly a hefty transfer fee for a player who impresses.

There is also another very interesting angle to this scenario. Manchester City have been linked to various takeovers of other soccer clubs elsewhere in Europe, most notably it has been reported that they were looking at acquiring a 40% stake in AC Milan of Italy. This could be a chance for one of our teams to attract an investment from the Abu Dhabi Sheikh. With all attention being on South African soccer due to the upcoming 2010 World Cup investment groups may be interested in obtaining a foothold in this part of the world.

After all we are an emerging market with a lot of potential. Clubs such as AmaZulu and Moroka Swallows could benefit greatly from such a backer because of their relatively great histories and substantial fan-bases who have been starved of success due to the greater financial muscle of the likes of Sundowns, Chiefs, Pirates and Supersport United. It is for the reasons I have mentioned that our clubs must seize the opportunity offered by City’s visit in late July.