If the club wants a "global image", they need to play in countries that matter, China has a population of over 1.25 billion people, its an audience that you don't ignore, especially when they are really putting a lot of effort into football.I'm sure we could get those competitive games in Europe, ruling out the need to go on tiring long distance trips. I wasn't saying we should totally scrap these pre season tours, just have them a bit closer to home.
I know nothing about chinese media and I have not read the original article. However, we should remember that there are always wheels within wheels in China. Every major business has political minders and the media are subject to vice like control. This is just propaganda, the price we pay for Chinese involvement..
We can't sack off these tours, so much of our sponsorship money is dependent on doing them and the world wide nature of CFG. Would Puma give us £60m if we played pre season against Bury and Oldham? Those days are gone. Yes, we are a football club but we are also a money making machine. Sheik Mansour put a lot of cash our way and his return is not income but capital gain. Maybe he, and others in AD are after influence as well, but that hasn't gone too well, given all the negatives here, in New York and elsewhere.
If we do indeed want that global image (and there is merit in that argument), that apparently didn't go too well out there. The fact we were pissed about for two days before eventually setting off didn't help.If the club wants a "global image", they need to play in countries that matter, China has a population of over 1.25 billion people, its an audience that you don't ignore, especially when they are really putting a lot of effort into football.
We're not going to convert fans in munich barcelona or paris as they already have their clubs, and guess where their clubs go pre season (US, Japan, China for the record).
I hope Sterling scores against Kitchee SC and reveals a t-shirt declaring "Hong Kong is not China".
What sort of Chinese name is Kitchee ? It it Mandarin for 'united'? Sounds more like Pawnee or Arapahoe.
I can't say I'm too bothered what one media report says, its the people who matter, and they seem (in the videos I've seen) to be enjoying what was on offer, but as you say the pissing about getting there didn't help, because you can't do "meet and greet" if you're not actually there, and who's fault that was, we will probably never really know.If we do indeed want that global image (and there is merit in that argument), that apparently didn't go too well out there. The fact we were pissed about for two days before eventually setting off didn't help.