Etihad Campus, Stadium and Collar Site Development Thread

[Manchester_lalala]

The beer they serve up is a disgrace. Stopped getting them now after the Southampton game. Happy with my bottle of water.

 

[mexico1970]

One factor is that we have an ageing fan base, due to those years when we were shit and attracted few young fans.

As you get older, the chances are you feel frailer and more vulnerable. But you are also less and less inclined to put up with hassle of any kind. Going to City seems to me to increasingly involve dealing with new and irritating forms of hassle. It's a disincentive when you feel the club wants you to jump through hoops for the honour of entering the ground.

The armchair gets more and more competitive as an alternative option.

I am still nostalgic for the days when you just turned up, paid and went in. If you took a flask and butties no one gave a damn. OK, those days are gone for good, but I miss that laid-back experience.

The whiff of bovril and the heady smell of cigar smoke wafting over the crowds head.

We're customers now, sad but true mate.

 

[Pablo ZZZ Peroni]

So that was his pitch to them as opposed to their stated aims?

He also pitched them a City branded Tata car I seem to remember.

The first part yes. But I took the second part to mean his understanding of what Abu Dhabi were looking for.

Here is another direct quote from Cooke in a Mirror interview with Mullock:

“It was a perfect storm. City couldn’t have been in a worse situation and Abu Dhabi was looking to invest in a Premier League football club as a vehicle to promote the nation.".....i.e confirmation the purchase was about Abu Dhabi soft power rather than just a very rich man wanting to buy a football club.

 

[blue whippet]

The beer they serve up is a disgrace. Stopped getting them now after the Southampton game. Happy with my bottle of water.

Can't comment on the beer as I've never bought one but I have bought water at the ground before and it cost me £2.00. At the women's game I get it for free!

 

[Shaelumstash]

The first part yes. But I took the second part to mean his understanding of what Abu Dhabi were looking for.

Here is another direct quote from Cooke in a Mirror interview with Mullock:

“It was a perfect storm. City couldn’t have been in a worse situation and Abu Dhabi was looking to invest in a Premier League football club as a vehicle to promote the nation.".....i.e confirmation the purchase was about Abu Dhabi soft power rather than just a very rich man wanting to buy a football club.

Well it’s confirmation that was Cooke’s view.

 

[Corky]

I meant to say it was Garry Cook as I've said before to marvin.

Here's one quote I've got others somewhere.

“We played West Ham at home on August 24. We won 3-0 and that was the day I made the presentation to representatives of Sheikh Mansour. ‘This is not just a football club purchase,’ I said. ‘This is an economic regeneration, this is land, this is a city that needs inward investment because public spending has gone away.’ They liked the story. They were looking at a lot of clubs. Leeds United was one. They wanted to get engaged at Arsenal as a partner. Clearly, they wanted to be in the Premier League.
“What was the purpose of Manchester City to them? It was, ‘how do we create a proxy brand for Abu Dhabi? We’ve already built a racetrack, we’re in the sports business, we need a vehicle.’ And that was us.”

Manchester was part of a large pathfinder regeneration project at the time, if they had done their homework they would have found out in ten minutes that the statement was disingenuous.

If the statement was made in 2011 after the change of government and new policies kicking it then it would have been more accurate.

 

[Pablo ZZZ Peroni]

Well it’s confirmation that was Cooke’s view.

You don't believe it was about soft power then?

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Unfortunately we won’t be buying £100 million players at those ticket prices.

We have the second highest revenue in the PL and if United fell out of the top 4 for a couple of seasons, we'd probably have the highest. The reasons our matchday revenue is the lowest of the 'Big 6' are:

1. We're not in London so can't charge their prices
2. Our stadium isn't as big as United's (but at least we have decent legroom)
3. Liverpool, probably the best comparison as they're in the northwest with a similar sized stadium, only sell 25k season tickets compared to our 40k. That means they're getting more of their money from one-off tickets which you can charge 20% more for. Hence their matchday revenue is higher than ours. Plus they charge one price per block, so are getting more for the Category B or C games (which are the majority) but a bit less than they could charge for the Category A games.

But we simply don't yet have the demand Liverpool have, and it's the job of the club management to create that demand. It won't happen on its own.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

We are too sensitive over "empty seats' due to the constant idiotic 'banter'.

There's more to it than that. Firstly we can give someone 1/19th of their seasoncard cost back and sell the seats at full price. Most of the seats unsold yesterday will have been single seats, which are no use to someone wanting to take their kid or kids to a game maybe for the first time. Those people could well be our future seasoncard holders.

I started by nagging my dad, who took us to a few games to start with in the 1960's, then we got season tickets in the early 70's. Going to those few games made us fans for life. Not having seats available for sale, just because people can't be arsed listing them, stops these people attending.And it's not just seats they but but merchandise and refreshments.

 

[Maly]

The first part yes. But I took the second part to mean his understanding of what Abu Dhabi were looking for.

Here is another direct quote from Cooke in a Mirror interview with Mullock:

“It was a perfect storm. City couldn’t have been in a worse situation and Abu Dhabi was looking to invest in a Premier League football club as a vehicle to promote the nation.".....i.e confirmation the purchase was about Abu Dhabi soft power rather than just a very rich man wanting to buy a football club.

Thanks for posting the stuff you have about this, I’d completely forgotten about all of that

My understanding was that ADUG was SM’s personal investment company, which suggests to me that primarily, City were bought to generate money, with the added bonus of advertising Abu Dhabi as a tourist & business destination

I’d interpreted the part in bold as promoting the nation from a tourist perspective & nothing else. Would you consider that to be soft power, or are you driving at something else?

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

There's more to it than that. Firstly we can give someone 1/19th of their seasoncard cost back and sell the seats at full price. Most of the seats unsold yesterday will have been single seats, which are no use to someone wanting to take their kid or kids to a game maybe for the first time. Those people could well be our future seasoncard holders.

I started by nagging my dad, who took us to a few games to start with in the 1960's, then we got season tickets in the early 70's. Going to those few games made us fans for life. Not having seats available for sale, just because people can't be arsed listing them, stops these people attending.And it's not just seats they but but merchandise and refreshments.

well the only way to stop that is to not sell individuals seats, which will go down well given how the fans were treated like shit by the club this summer.

 

[blueparrot]

There's more to it than that. Firstly we can give someone 1/19th of their seasoncard cost back and sell the seats at full price. Most of the seats unsold yesterday will have been single seats, which are no use to someone wanting to take their kid or kids to a game maybe for the first time. Those people could well be our future seasoncard holders.

I started by nagging my dad, who took us to a few games to start with in the 1960's, then we got season tickets in the early 70's. Going to those few games made us fans for life. Not having seats available for sale, just because people can't be arsed listing them, stops these people attending.And it's not just seats they but but merchandise and refreshments.

Said it many times, we should have, after the extention and relocation ring fenced match day seats and not allowed s//c relocations to split and move those seats, so we end up with single seats scattered all over. If / when we extend the North then we must use that opportunity to have blocks of match day seats and ring fence them so match day buyers can go as a group or a family..

 

[asahartford1]

Said it many times, we should have, after the extention and relocation ring fenced match day seats and not allowed s//c relocations to split and move those seats, so we end up with single seats scattered all over. If / when we extend the North then we must use that opportunity to have blocks of match day seats and ring fence them so match day buyers can go as a group or a family..

Are you saying that those ring fenced seats would only be sold to people in 3s 4s 5s , or whatever, and only on a match by match basis. If so that would lead to more empties, for the convenience of some who might never reappear.

 

[Lavinda Past]

Well it’s confirmation that was Cooke’s view.

I can't believe that you are trying to put distance between Sheikh Mansour/ADUG and public comments from the then CEO!

Did ADUG deny anything said by Garry Cook? No, they didn't.
Was he in a position to know and explain the facts? Yes, he was central to the whole deal.
Was he speaking from a prepared/agreed script? Almost certainly - the new owner of any business would be stupid if they allowed a spokesperson to speak on their behalf without guidance. Particularly if that person was relatively new to them.

 

[Maly]

I can't believe that you are trying to put distance between Sheikh Mansour/ADUG and public comments from the then CEO!

Did ADUG deny anything said by Garry Cook? No, they didn't.
Was he in a position to know and explain the facts? Yes, he was central to the whole deal.
Was he speaking from a prepared/agreed script? Almost certainly - the new owner of any business would be stupid if they allowed a spokesperson to speak on their behalf without guidance. Particularly if that person was relatively new to them.

Isn’t that exactly what happened with the chap who fronted the takeover? His name escapes me, but I think he was spouting we’d sign everyone & anyone we wanted? Wasn’t he quietly removed shortly after his comments?

So whilst I don’t disagree with the sentiments of your post, there wasn’t necessarily a script or guidance regarding Cook’s comments, unless you know otherwise?

 

[blueparrot]

Are you saying that those ring fenced seats would only be sold to people in 3s 4s 5s , or whatever, and only on a match by match basis. If so that would lead to more empties, for the convenience of some who might never reappear.

No I'm saying when the last relocation happened after the extentionI knew when matchday tickets went on sale where there were maybe 2 or 3 rows of seats in various blocks around the ground for matchday sales so I could buy 1 or 2 for me and my son, but I also knew if he or I wanted to bring a couple of friend or our daugter I could get 4 /5/6 together.
Over the years those rows have seen s/c hoders move into them and (this season of deferalls apart) now when they go on sale you are very lucky to see more that 2 seats together available, and they soon go leaving singles dotted about all over.
So all I'm saying is if they had not allowed s/c to relocate into those available rows there wouldn't be the problem of isolated singles.

 

[Corky]

Isn’t that exactly what happened with the chap who fronted the takeover? His name escapes me, but I think he was spouting we’d sign everyone & anyone we wanted? Wasn’t he quietly removed shortly after his comments?

So whilst I don’t disagree with the sentiments of your post, there wasn’t necessarily a script or guidance regarding Cook’s comments, unless you know otherwise?

Sulaiman Al-Fahim fronted it all and was found to be a crook after taking over at Pompey soon after.

Also Amanda Stavelely with a chequered business past and Prince Andrew connections was also involved. The Geordies have her to look forward to now.

​

 

[Shaelumstash]

I can't believe that you are trying to put distance between Sheikh Mansour/ADUG and public comments from the then CEO!

Did ADUG deny anything said by Garry Cook? No, they didn't.
Was he in a position to know and explain the facts? Yes, he was central to the whole deal.
Was he speaking from a prepared/agreed script? Almost certainly - the new owner of any business would be stupid if they allowed a spokesperson to speak on their behalf without guidance. Particularly if that person was relatively new to them.

Well if you apply the same logic to the “pre-prepared script” that Khaldoon has been reading from for the last 12 years, he’s repeatedly and deliberately pointed out that the club is owned by Sheikh Mansour and that he’s working on his his behalf, not the country’s.

“Soft Power” is quite a loose term, I’d have to understand your definition to consider whether I think it applies.

Has City been used to promote visibility of Abu Dhabi as a place to do business and visit? Absolutely.

Has City been used as a political tool for Abu Dhabi to gain leverage for political and human rights misdeeds? Not really. If anything, it’s highlighted those misdeeds and put them under more pressure if anything.

 

[Kippaxpete]

Sulaiman Al-Fahim fronted it all and was found to be a crook after taking over at Pompey soon after.

Also Amanda Stavelely with a chequered business past and Prince Andrew connections was also involved. The Geordies have her to look forward to now.

​

Let's not forget that it was Staveley who acted for Sheikh Mansour when ADUG were negotiating the deal to buy us in 2008 thereby earning her a tidy £10m in commission. In fairness, that didn't turn out too bad for us.

 

[maurizio]

There's more to it than that. Firstly we can give someone 1/19th of their seasoncard cost back and sell the seats at full price. Most of the seats unsold yesterday will have been single seats, which are no use to someone wanting to take their kid or kids to a game maybe for the first time. Those people could well be our future seasoncard holders.

I started by nagging my dad, who took us to a few games to start with in the 1960's, then we got season tickets in the early 70's. Going to those few games made us fans for life. Not having seats available for sale, just because people can't be arsed listing them, stops these people attending.And it's not just seats they but but merchandise and refreshments.

I agree but the "empty seats" banter is just ridiculous as it mostly comes from non matchgoing opposition supporters. I have exactly the same experience as you. When I stopped going with my dad I would attend occasional games for a while (before my season ticket) and arrange to meet up with workmates, friends and family. Also it was pay on the gate and not expensive. Can't they bring in section where members can sit/stand next to who they want, pay on the gate a possibility?