City v United Beijing friendly pre match - CANCELLED

[stan bowles]

Vinny wheeled out on cue to let everyone know how disappointed the club is that the game had to be cancelled. Fair enough. Good of him to front up. Not sure he could have apologised any more if he'd tried. Keep the Chinese fans happy #priorities

 

[DiscoSteve]

I wonder how much revenue has been lost in unsold shirts because of this...

 

[john@staustell]

Nice good win against Dortmund on a nice sunny day should round off our tour nicely. RAGS off sulking home, ideal.

 

[Deleted member 58678]

That's not even the half of it. For it being a clear soulless corporate whoring exercising for advertising and pleasing plastic supporters abroad, they'd only sold half the tickets and it was due to be played in a half empty stadium.

Seriously, what's the fucking point?

An absolute farce all round and terrible for our preparations for a long hard season.

Last season we had some outraged entitled childlike morons burning tickets to our game in Vietnam because they felt that our players hadn't made a big enough fuss of them while in their hotel going about their business. And that was played in a half empty ground too.

An utter joke.

Bring back something like the Thomas Cook trophy and a few friendlies in Scotland et al. Football has to be the priority.

Too right pal

As I've said it'd be better playing Celtic at the Aviva and be part of a tournament at Hamburg with SV and Rangers.

 

[beermusic]

Surely the revenue trips should be done post season, give the players a bit of a holiday and an easy game to finish off the year. How can it possibly be good for them pre-season to travel thousands of miles on a plane. I miss the old pre-season friendlies, playing teams we wouldn't normally play. Maybe today's cancellation might encourage a rethink..

 

[kaz7]

I expect pep would have got them playing a game of some sorts behind closed doors today to keep their fitness levels up,i was looking foward to the game but not on that pitch for sure

 

[SkyBlueTX]

The last time I saw grass like that pitch was when chinch bugs sucked the life out of my St. Augustine.

 

[Mad Eyed Screamer]

China in July is most definitely not the place for pre-season warm-up matches but the financial attractions of an expanded fan base are very powerful, alas.

Exactly and it happened around the late 90's when we were to play 3 games and came home after one due to Monsoon season. Ended up playing at Scarborough instead (I was there!)

 

[David Deacon]

You'd have thought someone would have invented a rain cover for football pitch by now.

 

[Chris in London]

Exactly and it happened around the late 90's when we were to play 3 games and came home after one due to Monsoon season. Ended up playing at Scarborough instead (I was there!)

Fair point. We ignore the commercial advantages of going to China at our peril, likewise America. There are only so many weeks of the year we can go there. The end of the season is a non-starter 2 years out of 4 because of international tournament football, and the sheikh does like us to pop over there from time to time :). The players need some time off, and pre-season is the obvious time to expand our global reach.