Sport Unions

CP_Scouse

Registered
Mar 27, 2014
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Obviously as city supporters, we are apart of the CFG (city football group) in which profits, players, brands etc are shared amongst the teams involved. But the reason i bring this up is, why doesnt anyone else do it?
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The Red Bull as a brand has 4 teams. Why dont the owners lend players to the other teams? Im not a red shit sympathizer but still. The ny/nj brand could do so much better if they have different players every year.
Im so glad the CFG has us under their wings
 
The Red Bull as a brand has 4 teams. Why dont the owners lend players to the other teams? Im not a red shit sympathizer but still. The ny/nj brand could do so much better if they have different players every year.
Im so glad the CFG has us under their wings

They actually have five teams. There's Red Bull Ghana, too, for all that it matters.

Anyway, to answer your question, there's probably a few reasons. For a start, the set-up/purchase costs for buying into extra teams is often too much and puts teams off. There's the fact that many - perhaps most - teams are perfectly happy just buying players and see little value in having a foreign affiliation in an overseas league. Then there's the issue that when the single-ownership teams actively start swapping players with each other then invariably you start getting accusations of cheating or at least rule-bending, meaning that it only takes one or two high profile cases to effectively stain the concept and make it inviable for a few years until the furore dies down.

Take for instance the Udinese-Granada-Watford co-ownership. The owner of Udinese tried to use his ownership of Granada and Watford to essentially be bringing a whole team of talented up-and-comings through so that whenever a player left Udinese they always had a player on call to replace him. They started by loaning out entire teams to Granada and Watford. UEFA allowed it at first, but then decided that it was a little bit suspect, and as a result ended up changing the rules for the entirety of European football to prevent international teams from loaning in so many foreign players. Watford almost got promoted to the Premier League via those loanees, but now, having had to buy some of the better ones and discard others, they have had their confidence shaken and are struggling and looking nothing like the well-oiled machine they were last season.

Then there's the case of Lampard. As you all surely know, the very second he got loaned to MCFC - which to this day I remain convinced was nothing more than a desperation move as the Melbourne move fell through (again, due to governing bodies intervening) - there were cries of foul play and accusations of breaking the rules. Again, obviously the loan went through but I would not be surprised to hear next summer that UEFA change the rules to say that two clubs under the same ownership cannot loan players to each other full stop. FIFA already has a rule which says that two clubs under the same ownership cannot participate in the same competitions, meaning that CFG may very well have wanted to purchase another European club but likely has given up on the idea, or at the very least is very hesitant, as the club would be banned from ever entering the Champions League if it did so.

Long story short, people get skittish when this happens. It might happen more in the future - there is a very real chance that CFG may actually create interest in other clubs doing the same thing worldwide - but until it becomes a globally-accepted tactic, it's going to be viewed with a mixture of suspicion and envy which makes for very volatile interactions and means that anything the slightest bit questionable, even if it's only questionable when you deliberately misinterpret it, is going to be picked apart mercilessly and create a lot of negative headlines.

Of course, you could probably argue that if CFG had been the idea of Arsenal, Real Madrid or Man Utd, then the idea would be lauded from the rooftops as the greatest idea in football history, but that's probably just me being cynical, and doesn't change the fact that CFG is viewed as a very controversial entity in a lot of places.