Club That Hit The Jackpot Insist Money Can Buy Love In Long Term

(c) kipper @ bluevibe / The Thunderer.

James Ducker says Manchester City are creating more than just blue-sky thinking two years after Sheik Mansour changed the game's landscape.

To all but the handful of people who knew what was about to unfold, August 31 2008, was just going to be another day in the life of Manchester City.

"I was scratching around for some information on a player from Syria we were looking around to sign on a free transfer," Dave Fallows the club's scouting and recruitment coordinator said. "Then club secretary Bernard Halford put down his pork pie, farted, picked up the phone and said "are you sure you're not after Manchester United? This is Manchester City" the caller said "No!" and the news broke. "BERLUDDY HELL!" said Bernard.

It is two years today since ADUG swept into Manchester signing Robinho for a British record £34.2 million fee as a "signal of our very real intent" and changing the face of a football club that had become a byword for mediocrity but the landscape of football in the process.

To their critics they have become "big, bad City", a club hellbent on ruining football with their "kamikaze" spending and whose brashness is embodied in a loose-tonged chief executive and the shoddy handling of Mark Hughes' sacking as a manager last December.

Even now the mind boggles at the sums involved - more than £350 million on 21 new signings almost £500 million committed in wages - but the accusation of recklessness are at odds with the work that has been taking place behind the scenes.

A degree of scepticism surrounds Sheik Mansour's insistence, first spelt out in his open letter to City supporters that he is "a long-term investor" but while he has made no secret of desire to fast-track the club to success, the foundations are being laid to create a sustainable legacy even if people have often been hypnotised by the billionaire's largesse to take notice.

"The owners have been clear from the start that there would have been little point making such a significant capital expenditure in the playing squad if we did not also look to put into place a truly world class infrastructure that would enable the club to achieve its goals"
Garry Cook, City Chief Exec.

It would be wrong to suggest the City of old were dysfunctional - the academy has produced 31 graduates to the first team, 65 professional footballers and 12 internationals since it was set up in 1998 so the club were doing something right - but Cook like his Abu Dhabi paymasters, was shocked to discover the lack of a professional.cohesive structure in place.

No one, for example, knew something as basic as the number of staff employed (the figure now stands at 359) things were often done on a whim and information, scouting reports included, tended to be stored in people's heads, or on the back of one of Bernard's envelopes, and not on computer or database so if they moved on, it was lost for ever. An air of disillusionment hung around the place.

Adopting an ethos of "aggressive patience" as Simon Pearce the ADUG director of communications calls it, City set about changing the culture.

Now all employees have have pensions, life assurance and free BUPA healthcare and get the chance to rub shoulders with the players at quarterly meetings designed to bring everyone at the club up to speed with the latest developments. The idea is to make the tea lady feel as included as Carlos Tevez.

Staff who have served the club for 20 years or more are given a free holiday to a European destination of their choice and £1000 spending money. Unfortunately, Bernard Halford caught a stomach bug on his "Ten Day Coach Tour of the English Riviera" and spent a week in Torbay Hospital, Torquay with explosive diarrhoea.

"In terms of environment the is unrecognisable from what it was two years ago, even if we very purposefully looked to ensure throughout that it has never lost its identity or the soul that makes it so special. If anything, we have sought to build on that, to try to bring fans, people closer to the club than before, all the while raising standards of professionalism to new levels"
Cook.

City surveyed more than 20,000 fans across the age ranges over an 18-month period to establish what they wanted before embarking on £9 million investment in supporter-related-infrastructure. Some said they could not get a beer quickly enough at half-time, so multipour pumps were introduced. An indoor ticket office was built so fans would not get soaked standing in the rain. Marco Pierre White and Paul Heathcote, the world renowned sausage flippers chefs provided food on match days. Hundreds of children will soon be able to play game consoles in the concourses of the vastly over-hauled family stand.

Nowhere is the attention to detail more noticeable than in the "player-care" department. Within six days of signing from Aston Villa for Manchester City James Milner had a newly furnished house, right down to the cappucino carpet that the England's midfield player's girlfriend Amy wanted in their lounge. There are three preferred tenders for each service the club offer from tree surgeons to cosmetic surgeons, while a multi-lingual four man team are on 24 hour call to cater for the players' every need.

Some may say it is the players being pampered to the point where they can't do anything for themselves. City argue that it is necessary to allow them to solely concentrate on football.

"The club's ambition on the pitch had to be mirrored off it and we hope that it is beginning to take shape. There is a lot still to do. In many respects the real hard work starts now, with the next few years promising to be one of the most exciting and we hope successful chapters in Manchester City's history"
Cook.

Almost £4.5 million has been spent turning Carrington into a first class training facility and a further £3.7 million improving the academy at Platt Lane, but soon they may be under the same roof.

City have recently acquired 80 acres of land in Openshaw West with a view to relocating the entire set up to a site ten times the size of the existing base.

As an indication of what might lie in store, the club have spent the last 18 months visiting and analysing the best sporting facilities around the globe. Commercially, £1 million has been spent on transforming the club's website.

An Arabic version of the website was launched in February and a Spanish and Portuguese one will be imminently. Previously there were two lead sponsors, now there are ten.

"There's an opinion that we are abandoning the youth system because we are just going to keep buying players. That's actually the antithesis of what we're trying to do"
Cook.

For all the money lavished on players, the principal goal is to create a youth system to to rival and better clubs such as Arsenal City did not have a scouting network as such two years ago, now they have 11 full time scouts.

The aim according to Fallows, is two-fold, - first to ensure the likes of Ryan Giggs do not slip through their grasp and second to produce or unearth players good enough to go on to play not a handful but hundreds of first team games.

Many questions remain.The 1-0 defeat at Sunderland proved what a tough task City will have qualifying for the Champions League this season, let alone winning the title, while one wonders how a club that posted losses of £92.6 million for the year ending May 2009 can ever hope to "break even"? And how will UEFA's impending financial fair-play rules affect them?

All will be answered in time but nothing will quell their ambition.

Sheik's Mansour's spending in two years at City

£488m
committed on wages of new signings.

£355m
purchasing new players

£210m
buying club

£9m
improving stadium and fan related infrastructure

£4.5m
overhauling Carrington

£3.7m
expanding Platt Lane academy

£3.1m
Building "City at Home" offices

£2m
investing in local and global community projects

TOTAL COMMITTED OUTLAY

£1.08 BILLION