How the City Football Group manages the look of its teams

According to the official website description, «the City Football Group owns football-related assets in major cities around the world, including football clubs, academies, technical and marketing support companies. The ambition is to increase our involvement in football both on and off the pitch, find and develop the best talents, and deliver exciting and innovative football». More concretely, the City Football Group is directly connected to the ownership of 13 teams worldwide through majority stakes, shares, and commercial agreements. The flagship is obviously Manchester City, a club of which the group holds 100% of the shares after Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan originally purchased 90% of the club’s shares from then-Prime Minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra for £210 million in 2008. Today, according to the report published by Manchester City for the 2022/23 season, City possesses the richest brand in the world with a £1.5 billion value. And talking about a brand is accurate because the City Football Group has sought on several occasions to shape the aesthetic identity of its clubs to resemble that of Manchester City.

How City Group rebranding works

Sometimes it started from scratch, making it easy, as was the case with New York City FC, the MLS franchise that played its home games at Yankee Stadium in its early years. From its debut, New York City FC has worn a sky-blue kit with a circular logo featuring the initials NYC. The same sky-blue kit and circular logo were used for Melbourne City Football Club, although in this case, after acquiring the shares in 2014, the City Group decided to change the club's colors. The same approach was also taken with Montevideo City Torque, the Uruguayan team purchased in 2020 as the City Football Group's entry into South America, and Mumbai City FC, the team competing in the Indian top division with a sky-blue kit featuring a circular logo. In all these cases, the City Football Group has repeated what Red Bull did with its own clubs, namely establishing an aesthetic identity that allows the brand to expand globally and be instantly recognizable.

However, there are also cases where this aesthetic revolution was not even considered. The difference from the Red Bull group is that in certain situations, the City Football Group recognized that the brand of the team being acquired had a symbolic and emotional value far greater than its own. Changing the logo and colors would have been counterproductive. The latest case was in Italy with Palermo, which retained its pink and black colors even after the City Football Group’s entry into the club in 2022. For this season, the Sicilians have launched a third kit with the iconic crest created by Piero Gratton, further proof that for the City Group, the heritage of its clubs is taken seriously. The same scenario occurred a few years earlier with Girona, the Spanish club where City acquired a 44.3% stake in 2017, maintaining the red and white colors. In this case, the collaboration developed more on the technical side: the only Manchester City signing in this transfer window was Brazilian Savio, a player who had spent the previous season on loan at Girona after the City Football Group purchased him in 2022 through Troyes (another City Group club where the original aesthetics were not revolutionized).

On one hand, there is the desire to export the City Football Group brand and make it instantly recognizable through an aesthetic that recalls Manchester City and, consequently, its wealth and on-field success. On the other hand, there is always the desire to expand the City Group’s influence in the football world but at the same time, a firm commitment to not immediately alienate fans and the local community. This mostly happens with European teams that already had a history, glorious or otherwise, before the City Group’s arrival. For this reason, revolutionizing the club colors would eliminate the real added value of these clubs, which is the sometimes century-old bond connecting the city, its inhabitants, and its supporters. It’s all a matter of perception.