Manchester City’s tentacles spread much further than their sport complex in England. What’s being built at the Premier League club is different to what other clubs who suddenly have huge resources have done, such as PSG.
A long term look which started several years ago is already seeing success, with the platform in place for Pep Guardiola to arrive and then succeed at Manchester City.
A big part of that is Ferran Soriano, who had worked with Guardiola at Barcelona and who was then able to attract the manager to Manchester.
Soriano is currently in Uruguay, visiting Montevideo to give a conference speech titled ‘A new model of football arrives in Uruguay’. And what is that model? The Manchester City one, of course, with a big dollop of experience gained from Barcelona.
Speaking to Uruguayan newspaper Ovacion just before his trip, Soriano was asked about the nature of the relationship with Club Atlético Torque.
The City chief explained: “We provide training methodology, technology and know-how of the largest football group in the world. We have integrated Torque into our network of clubs so that it takes full advantage of its potential, both at the football and commercial level. We also offer players the possibility of developing their career in the various teams of the group. We have a fantastic example in Bruno Fornaroli, who went from Uruguay to our team Melbourne City and became the best player in Australia.”
After explaining the plan with Torque is long term, looking over the period of a decade, Soriano was asked why Uruguay was chosen as the first South American country to join Manchester City’s group: “First and fundamentally because of the amount of football talent that exists in the country; then because in Uruguay the necessary legal and economic conditions for a foreign investment are given.”
Whilst it’s not too hard to believe the main reason behind Manchester City hiring Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain was to lay the stage for Pep Guardiola to arrive, now things are clearly moving on from there and City Football Group doesn’t look like slowing down.
