Business

Manchester City in late-stage talks to buy French second-tier club

Executives eye Troyes as number one target with acquisition price in ‘single-digit millions’

Manchester City forward Raheem Sterling with team-mates Gabriel Jesus and Phil Foden after scoring. File photograph: Getty

Murad Ahmed
Thu Aug 20 2020 - 20:34

Manchester City's parent company is in late-stage talks to buy second division French football club ESTAC Troyes, in a deal that would extend its strategy of taking over football clubs worldwide.

City Football Group (CFG) executives have held talks with several other French sides in recent months, including another second tier team Nancy, but consider Troyes as their first-choice target in the country, according to sources.

While the parties soon hope to conclude a transaction with an acquisition price in the “single-digit millions” of euro, talks were continuing and could yet come to nothing, said a well-informed source.

It would be the latest football club purchase for Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the billionaire member of Abu Dhabi's ruling family who bought Manchester City in 2008.

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He has spent hundreds of millions of pounds on world-class players and turned Manchester City into a force capable of winning football’s biggest prizes.

In 2013, he went a step further, creating CFG and embarking on a spending spree to buy or take minority stakes in clubs around the world.

Some of the teams, such as New York City FC and Mumbai City, have been bought with the particular aim of breaking into lucrative international markets and promoting City’s brand.

But the strategy, which is masterminded by chief executive Ferran Soriano, is also designed to spot promising players and bring them into the CFG network.

A deal with Troyes would follow the strategy of investing in other small sides on the continent – such as Spain’s Girona and Belgium’s Lommel SK – giving wider opportunities to young stars and ensuring players gain experience of European leagues where the standard is considered higher than elsewhere in the world.

Fresh funding

Troyes narrowly missed out on promotion in the past two seasons, having been relegated from Ligue 1, France’s top tier, in 2018.

CFG is also looking to make further investments, evaluating teams in Europe, Africa and Asia. While spending is fuelled by its rich owner, new funding has been provided by US private equity group Silver Lake, which last year paid $500 million for a 10 per cent stake in CFG, valuing the group at $4.8 billion.

Last month, Manchester City overturned a two-season ban from the Champions League competition for alleged breaches of Financial Fair Play rules. This allows it to take part in Europe’s top competition where clubs have the chance to share in more than €2 billion of prize money.

The club’s victory has not been matched on the pitch in this case. It was knocked out of the competition by France’s Olympique Lyonnais last week and has never won the tournament. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2020

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