City Ownership

[Chris in London]

Brilliant post Chris, and I'm happy to take that as the reason behind the comment. Unusual it was missed from the website quote though.

One little tip....noone calls it the "EPL"...;-)

I suspect it was edited out of the OS to avoid the sort of reaction this thread has generated.

BTW - "EPL" = 3 characters; "Premier League" = 13 characters.

After a post that long, you are suggesting I should have made it even longer?

;-)

It's about credibility, Chris ;-)

Dear Pot,

Thanks for the tip

Best wishes,

Kettle

 

[GStar]

Nothing moves or is done in Abu Dhabi, without the knowledge and permission of the Crown Prince.

Sheikh Mansour gets the green light from his bro, and the resources that may come of that.

He has given us Khaldoon, a big mate of Sheikh Mansour, but the eyes and ears of the ultimate boss.

It can be dressed up in a variety of ways, but Mancini was merely playing good politics, acknowledging the crown prince.

We only have to look at our various sponsorship deals to see our relationship is for the betterment of Abu Dhabi, not just Sheikh Mansour's pocket.

No biggie.

Now, if you could just write your transfer posts with such clarity...

 

[leewill31]

After the whole Toxic Shinatwatra affair I'd have thought people would approach this a little less blindly.

The fact that it was edited out of the published interview strongly suggests that the club do not want it publishing. The extent of the reasons is up for debate, but why change something if there's nothing to hide?

http://www.mcfc.co.uk/Video/Interviews/Homecoming-Mancini-speech

maybe they were waiting for this.

pmsl

 

[Damocles]

Good post Chris, thanks for the info.

Nothing moves or is done in Abu Dhabi, without the knowledge and permission of the Crown Prince.

Sheikh Mansour gets the green light from his bro, and the resources that may come of that.

He has given us Khaldoon, a big mate of Sheikh Mansour, but the eyes and ears of the ultimate boss.

It can be dressed up in a variety of ways, but Mancini was merely playing good politics, acknowledging the crown prince.

We only have to look at our various sponsorship deals to see our relationship is for the betterment of Abu Dhabi, not just Sheikh Mansour's pocket.

No biggie.

Interesting Tolm, so you are saying that whilst the stated ownership IS Sheikh Mansour, the "project" is really ran by the Royal Family itself? Thus Sheikh Mansour is a figurehead rather than a solitary owner in the manner of an Abramovich?

 

[Blue Fill]

Sheik Mohammed has met with President Sarkosy, the Queen and Prince Phillip and Hilary Clinton over the last three years. If he is good enough for them then I seriously doubt the MCFC would feel the need to hide the fact that he has a connection with us.

My own suspicion is that Mancini meant to thank the Prophet not the Sheik and it was a slip of the tongue.

 

[SWP's back]

(Long post)
Much as I admire Damocles, I think he’s got the wrong end of the stick on this one.

If you equate ownership with ‘who provided the money that was used to buy the club’ the answer is ‘Sheikh Mansour’ via of course ADUG. There is not a scrap of evidence to suggest anything else, and the Club at the time of the takeover was explicit that ADUG was funded entirely by Sheikh Mansour’s personal wealth – ie not for instance from the Abu Dhabi Sovereign Wealth fund or from other members of the ruling family in Abu Dhabi. Sheikh Mohammed has not parted with a penny towards the purchase of the club or its subsequent funding. To answer Damocles’ question, our investor is Sheikh Mansour, no-one else.

So, why does the manager imply something different? Because I suspect that Sheikh Mohammed has a significant degree of influence over the direction the club takes without actually owning any part of it. And I rather doubt that amongst the Abu Dhabi ruling family, he and Sheikh Mansour are the only ones whose opinion counts. There are a number of influential voices there, even though the club belongs to Sheikh Mansour and Sheikh Mansour alone. (I also suspect that somebody somewhere suggested to RM that it might be a sensible or diplomatic thing to say).

We need to remember that notions of ownership in royal circles, especially middle eastern ones, do not exactly correspond with the ordinary concept of ownership in western societies. I own my house, which means I can mortgage it and sell it if I want. The Queen ‘owns’ Balmoral, Windsor, Buck Pal, etc, but could she sell or mortgage them? No. The reality is that she holds them on trust for her successors, and ultimately for the nation. That trust isn’t set out in writing anywhere, but it is there, nonetheless. Comparing ordinary concepts of ownership with the ownership of assets by royal/ruling families is a bit like comparing apples and pears.

Of course, the Queen does own other assets in her personal capacity, like her dogs and horses, which she can dispose of at will. Sheikh Mansour’s ownership of City perhaps looks on the face of it like a personal investment, not an asset he holds for the greater good of his nation. Yet we all know that City wasn’t purchased as a cash-cow, like the Glazers purchased United, nor was it bought for reasons of personal vanity, like Abramovic bought Chelsea. On this forum we know better than most how naive it is, as many lazy London based journalists have done, to consider City just as being a rich Arab’s plaything that one day he will get bored of. The purchase of City, albeit by one wealthy individual in his private capacity, is part of an extremely long term plan intended to benefit the entire Emirate. Heartening though it is to see pictures of our owner and his children wearing City shirts, the reality is that our club is now a significant publicity machine for the entire Abu Dhabi economy. Etihad Airlines’ logo is beamed to millions of people from Singapore to Buenos Aires. Tourism to Abu Dhabi is on the up.

The ruling family’s ultimate aim of course is to put Abu Dhabi in a position so that when the oil in Abu Dhabi does eventually run out, the Emirate remains an economic power and does not revert to being a strip of land in the desert as it was for all but the last 50 years or so of its existence. If you go there, you will notice other aspects of nation building – infrastructure (roads, hospitals etc), the new financial district they are building there. It is all part of a long term plan and City is a small but important feature of that. The comparison with the Queen owning Balmoral etc is not an exact one, because nobody suggests that City is now owned on trust for the people of Abu Dhabi, but it illustrates that in Sheikh Mansour’s circle, even assets owned personally are not always acquired simply for personal satisfaction.

Given the very long-term nature of the plan, and the nature of the dynamics within the ruling family, it is inconceivable that this is not a plan which the very highest echelons of the ruling family in Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed included, have not had significant involvement with. I grant you, it stretches belief to imagine that Sheikh Mohammed is involved to the level of deciding that we should go for Dzeko in January rather than Torres, but the idea that he has had nothing to do with the project is it seems to me equally inconceivable. Is anybody suggesting that one day Sheikh Mansour woke up and decided to buy City, the club he’d been following since he was a lad? No – we were chosen carefully as being the club who was (a) available (thanks, Frank) and (b) the best option to provide the long-term success story that the owner and his family want it to be. Who else did they (I emphasise ‘they’) look at – Villa? Spurs? Everton? Who knows, who cares – they chose us. Sheikh Mohammed was undoubtedly part of that process just as the various other influential figures in the ruling family were. Neither the owner nor the others in the decision-making circle were driven by a desire to see City succeed for the sake of the club, but because of what that success and exposure will bring to Abu Dhabi in the wider context.

All this of course, is what makes Sheikh Mansour the perfect football club owner. The one thing he is not doing it for is to make money. The sovereign wealth fund does that. As has been said elsewhere, there is not a scrap of evidence or even the whisper of a suspicion about him in terms of human rights abuses. He bought City because his Emirate, Abu Dhabi, needs is to put itself on the map – and owning the most successful football club in Europe will certainly do that. His uncle is part of the decision making process, not part of the ownership structure. Sheikh Mansour craves success in the EPL and the Champions League because the world has an insatiable appetite for those two competitions. Abu Dhabi wants success, and has virtually unlimited resources to achieve it. We are the vehicle for that success, so let’s enjoy the ride.

That is probably the best description of the 'project' that I have read to date.

Yep I would agree with your view. Top post.<br /><br />-- Tue May 24, 2011 12:44 pm --<br /><br />

After the whole Toxic Shinatwatra affair I'd have thought people would approach this a little less blindly.

The fact that it was edited out of the published interview strongly suggests that the club do not want it publishing. The extent of the reasons is up for debate, but why change something if there's nothing to hide?

Because the press might have a field day with it as they day everything else related to the club at the moment, and seeing as 95% of them wouldn't be bright enough to pick up on mancinis speech, they'd only trawl the website fishing for crap to report about at a later time ?

So because some half arsed Journo who people will scarcely believe might write nasty things about us, we shouldn't ask questions about the ownership of the club?

It's already been cleared up and the website confirms the ownership of the club. Is that not enough for you? Anyway, asking questions about the ownership of the club and inferring our club is owned by a person accussed of human rights violations are very different things.

 

[hello]

Good post Chris, thanks for the info.

Interesting Tolm, so you are saying that whilst the stated ownership IS Sheikh Mansour, the "project" is really ran by the Royal Family itself? Thus Sheikh Mansour is a figurehead rather than a solitary owner in the manner of an Abramovich?

Think figurehead is the wrong term of phase, whilst Mansour is the sole owner in the legal/finanicial sense, the interest and promotion of the emirate through the club is undoubtably viewed in wider circles. Hughes and the players went to the Royal palace rather than mansours own gaff for instance.

Whilst I am sure Sheikh Mansour doesn't need any help if running ADUG and subsequently MCFC its common sense that the big decisions will be discussed outside of the ADUG structure as its the image of the entire emirate at stake.

 

[VOOMER]

Something jumped out at me immediately last night, and I must admit that I was confused by it.

Mancini, on the pitch, said "I would like to give credit to the Royal Family of Abu Dhabi; Sheikh Mansour, Sheikh Mohammed and Khaldoon Al-Mubarak..."

Now, Man City have always maintained that they are 100% owned by Sheikh Mansour, and NOT through ADIA or any other subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Royal Family. This is important for several reasons; firstly, it would mean that we are essentially owned by the government of another country and secondly, it would mean that we are directly funded by "oil money".
I'll come to the oil money thing later, but I read something on the OS that I've quoted here:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.mcfc.co.uk/News/Team-news/2011/May/Roberto-Mancini-says-this-was-for-the-fans" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.mcfc.co.uk/News/Team-news/20 ... r-the-fans</a>

"All the credit for what we have achieved this season has to go to the players," said Roberto, "who worked so hard for us to win what we did. But I also want to give credit to the Royal Family of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mansour and our chairman, Khaldoon al Mubarak. But what this team has done is dedicated to our fans, who have suffered for so long but can now start to dream about a better future."

That isn't what he said. He thanked Sheikh Mohammed as well as part of the ownership team.

Sheikh Mohammed is the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Commander of their military. A few weeks ago, he was caught building his own mercenary army using companies charged with human rights abuses. Now, he has been called "the defacto ruler of Abu Dhabi and the UAE", and he's almost certainly the next President. The human rights abuses that occur there (from human trafficking, to confiscating passports, to creating a slave class, to 'sketchy' employment conditions, disallowing unions, sexual abuse of female workers, etc, etc) fall directly at his door. Under pressure from Western leaders about the Human Trafficking, he made a 55m donation to the UN to help fight the issue. That's about £10m, or Tevez's wages last year.

I was never worried about this type of thing when Sheikh Mansour was seen as the 100% owner of City. Although his wealth did come from oil originally, he's made billions in smart business moves. He was a personal owner using his personal wealth, and whilst he certainly does have power in Abu Dhabi, he isn't the guy in charge so these abuses cannot be laid at his door.

However, if we are owned by more than Sheikh Mansour, and he is a figurehead for our ownership as was suggested earlier, who exactly owns ADUG? Is Sheikh Mansour the 100% owner or are there other investors? Why does it say on the OS that Mansour 100% owns the club, when we have our manager thanking a completely different guy as part of our "owners"? Why was this edited out of the comment on the OS?

I would quite like to know if we are owned by a human rights abuser again or not.

Read "Private Eye", dude, because you will find that freedom isn't what it used to be in this country and I can't remember the last time our owners were mentioned in any negative context in that great magazine.

 

[CTID1974]

After the whole Toxic Shinatwatra affair I'd have thought people would approach this a little less blindly.

The fact that it was edited out of the published interview strongly suggests that the club do not want it publishing. The extent of the reasons is up for debate, but why change something if there's nothing to hide?

Because the press might have a field day with it as they day everything else related to the club at the moment, and seeing as 95% of them wouldn't be bright enough to pick up on mancinis speech, they'd only trawl the website fishing for crap to report about at a later time ?

So because some half arsed Journo who people will scarcely believe might write nasty things about us, we shouldn't ask questions about the ownership of the club?

that wasn't what was asked, he asked why the club would remove it / is there something to hide.

as supporters we should always ask questions as we'll be here long after any owners/managers/players, but if the club removed it to protect the public image of the club from third rate journalism, i've no problem at all with that ?!

 

[Krieng_Thai OSC]

Topic reminds me of Hollywood movie kind of “you don’t want to know the true, you cannot handle the truth” or “If I tell you the secret, I have to kill you”

Who is the owner? No matter what people want to believe, officially Sheikh Mansour is the club owner and he has done really well.
Nothing’s wrong about Sheikh Mohammed and royal family.
Human trafficking is just the people flooding to find jobs and it is really difficult to control. To cope with the problem now every resident need to have Emirates ID otherwise cannot access to all government sections and bank and so on. If you are illegally resident here you will find it difficult now to live.
Confiscating passports isn’t as easy here since airport has eye scan in case anyone committed the crime before and want to return back to the country using fake name and passport.
Sexual abuse of female workers is the problem but you know it happen everywhere. It will be better if they can apply Muslim law here I mean cut the thing that commit the crime.
Human abuse related to one of Abu Dhabi Sheikh is a shame. The former ruler is a good ruler. He has 14 sons (if I remember correctly) and one of them ruins their family good name. It is something nobody can argue about.

The problem here is due to it is not the real democracy country so they are targeted by many organizations and government found it difficult to adopt and comply with such many standards.

BTW this forum suppose to be fun especially during this time.