After news filtered from France that Marseille’s new owner, Frank McCourt, tried to buy Tottenham back in 2011, we now have news that Manchester City’s owners could have had a different project altogether had things panned out a little differently.
Bought by the Abu Dhabi United Group in 2008, the Premier League club has gone from strength to strength since, winning the Premier League and hiring Pep Guardiola as their new manager.
However, according to former Paris Saint-Germain president Charles Villeneuve, the investment group were also offered the opportunity to put some money in the French club.
Speaking to Yahoo, he said: “I went to Abu Dhabi. I knew al-Mubarak and some friends over there, and I went to tell them that Paris was a global brand, and that they needed to invest in them. However, they were already in talks with Manchester City.”
Missing the opportunity to sell some of his club to the Abu Dhabi investment group back then, Villeneuve quit as president in 2009, but that didn’t stop PSG from finding investors in the end.
As is now history, the club were taken over by Qatar Sports Investments in 2012, and the Ligue 1 side have dominated French football ever since.
Who knows, maybe in an alternate reality, the owners of the two clubs are switched, and perhaps Pep Guardiola is a Ligue 1 manager?
Actually, no, that’s just weird.
