‘Club partnerships is the future of world football’

Manchester City who have won four of the last five Premier League titles.Alongside the City Group, Red Bull is another prominent example with six clubs from Germany to Ghana, while Miami-based 777 Partners are growing in strength, adding clubs from Europe and Brazil to its stable. Group ownership of clubs is the new buzzword, and as the biggest flagbearers, Manchester City and RB Leipzig, face off in the UEFA Champions League knockout stage on Wednesday, the talk might just get louder.“I definitely think (club) partnerships is part of the future,” City group's chief operating officer Roel de Vries told TOI.

“For standalone clubs, I think there are now lot of opportunities to partner with others, get help. If you are a standalone club, there are certain things which are difficult. It’s not only money, it’s development, expertise and knowledge. There are many things in sports that are getting more and more professional, more difficult for an individual to do. “It’s similar to what happened in many other industries where you have technology being developed so fast that doing it by yourself does not make a lot of sense,” said de Vries.More than 100 clubs worldwide are now part of a group or partnership with Chelsea’s new owner, Todd Boehly, the latest to buy into a multi-club vision. The Premier League alone has clubs like Arsenal, Brentford, Brighton, Crystal Palace, Leicester, Nottingham Forest, Southampton and West Ham with ties to other clubs. “I think that partnerships are going to be the future and it can be in many forms. I do believe that the future is all type of partnerships and co-operations between clubs,” said de Vries.