Increasingly it seems like Don Garber is going to get his dream of a second New York club as the 20th expansion team in MLS.
When the commissioner was in Toronto recently, he all but said that the announcement would be made near the end of May. It doesn’t take much connecting of the dots to conclude that the timing of that probably means that the group lead by Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan is probably who has won the bid.
See, Sheik Mansour owns Manchester City and City is in New York at the end of May to play a friendly against Chelsea. One can already picture a press conference outside Yankee Stadium with Don and the Sheik standing side by each holding up a sky blue MLS strip with 20 on the back. For good measure they’ll likely announce that City will be the league’s dance partner at the all-star game (maybe for a few years running, now that the club is directly involved in the league).
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However, it remains to be seen just how much City itself would be involved in the running of NYCFC (and the league registered two trademarks – New York City FC and City FC in January, so you can expect that is what the branding will be). Just because Sheik Mansour owns the MLS team doesn’t mean that City owns them. They could operate separately.
Understandably, many MLS fans are concerned about another potential sub-club in the league. Chivas USA has long been the weak sister of its Mexican parent club and the results on and off the pitch have demonstrated how problematic that is. MLS fans assume that a similar situation would occur with NYCFC.
Complicating that is perceptions about Sheik Mansour and the part of the world that he comes from. As we’ve seen with his ownership in Manchester there will always be some that question what his “real” motivation is and whether he’s truly committed to the project long-term. Despite literally no evidence that he plans to abandon Manchester City, there remain a large sub-set of fans that are convinced he’s going to pull out on a whim one day. There is nothing I can say here to convince those people otherwise.
A more legitimate concern is whether Sheik Mansour understands the challenges that NYCFC might face and whether he realizes that he can’t make it Man City Junior and expect success. There is simply no way to know whether he understands that.
The closest thing a fan can point to is that Sheik Mansour has been responsive to local needs in Manchester. Unlike, say, Vincent Tan, Sheik Mansour did not go into Manchester hell-bent on reshaping the image of the club, nor did he ignore its history. Speaking as a long-time City fan, the only thing Sheik Mansour changed about City was that he helped them win more (which, in fairness, is a dramatic shift in the club’s culture).
I see no reason why he wouldn’t try to integrate himself and the club to the local needs of NYC. Even on a cynical level, it would be more profitable for him to do so.
Still, you have to wonder why he’d buy a MLS team, and shape it in City’s brand, if he didn’t think it would benefit the big club in some way. Understanding whether he can be successful in this venture requires you to speculate as to what his goals are with NYCFC in regards to MCFC.
There are two obvious advantages that can be gained – one focuses off the pitch and the other on.
On the pitch, gaining a foothold in the NYC youth development world is obviously a good thing. Other Premiership teams have academies in North America, but City’s would be unique in that it would be directly tied to a professional opportunity. That would make it a more desirable destination for many – especially if Sheik Mansour puts the type of money into the academy set-up that he is capable of.
Even if the very best academy prospects are poached to Manchester, a big investment into development in NYC can only help MLS long-term (not to mention American soccer in general). So, it’s difficult to see how this would be a problem.
The more controversial way that Sheik Mansour could be using NYCFC is to expand MCFC’s “brand” in the United States. NYCFC would need to be very careful in doing that. American soccer fans are sensitive to being seen as a second choice and if NYCFC comes across as a "farm team," it will fail.
Even wearing the iconic sky blue and white might be a mistake. It’s hard to see many Arsenal, or Chelsea, or United, or…fans in NYC supporting a team that was that associated with one of their main rivals. It’s unclear whether any cross branding with MCFC would work.
Simply put, if NYCFC is to be successful it has to have a strong connection to NYC.
Hopefully Sheik Mansour and MLS understand that.