Savio to Man City exposes the absolute sham of the multi-club ownership model
Hats off to Manchester City, who have pulled off a real coup in landing the in-demand Girona winger Savio in a deal that sees him join up with City this summer.
Of course, as a young left-sided attacker, he’s going to face plenty of competition for places at City despite his exploits this season, so it’s possible he’ll be sent out on loan. Very possibly to Girona again.
Again because he isn’t actually a Girona player. He’s on loan there from Troyes, a club languishing in the bottom half of Ligue 2 in France, a club for whom Savio has never actually played and a club who could probably have used a player of his quality over the last couple of years that he has instead spent at first PSV and now Girona.
But that’s just tough luck for Troyes, who were never going to see Savio in their colours unless something went dramatically wrong.
Because Troyes, like Girona, are part of the City Football Group and this is a transfer that really exposes the absolute sham that is multi-club ownership. It’s basically a racket. Now this isn’t news, but the upcoming deal to take Savio to City is the first really big and significant transfer since rules were tightened and toughened to try and get a lid back on the potential for mischief that these new football empires represent.
You’ve got to hand it to City here: they are signing a player of enormous promise from not just one but two of their own clubs.
Both the Premier League and UEFA are likely to want to see evidence of ‘fair market value’ being paid for the Brazilian youngster and it will certainly be interesting to see how this all plays out. With profit and sustainability rules at last proving to have some teeth and their subsequent impact on the Premier League’s January spending, this is another new but related frontier in how modern football operates.
City are far from the only club in such a multi-club environment, but they are the biggest and most successful and established empire builders. The City Football Group has been around long enough that even Frank Lampard was shuttled between its clubs back in the day.
City were among those clubs who voted against proposals to at least prevent loans between related clubs in January while everyone waits to try and work out what’s going on. Other clubs have their own interests here. Newcastle, most obviously, given their owners and the structure of the Saudi league. Manchester United, too, are entering this world via Jim Ratcliffe’s INEOS and their ownership of Nice in France and Lausanne-Sport in Switzerland. If Everton’s takeover by 777 Partners ever happens, they too will become part of an empire of clubs across Europe and South America.
And then of course there’s Chelsea, who shouldn’t be ignored just because they happen to making a complete b*llocks of it. Boehly and Eghbali cannot possibly be as stupid as they currently appear, and the fact Clearlake Capital also own Strasbourg shouldn’t go unnoticed by anyone. Nor should Strasbourg’s apparent current transfer policy of selling all their older players and buying up young ones. It looks…familiar. They’ve even taken Andrey Santos on loan, which is good of them.
Meanwhile the 115 charges against City show no sign of ever actually leading to any actual outcome. It’s all so complex, so difficult, and time-consuming. It’s all well and good for legal experts and football experts to warn darkly that relegation is the very least City can expect if and when a guilty judgement finally comes when the chances of that judgement ever coming before the seas rise and claim us all is close to non-existent. Another legal trick here, a further delay here. None of us will live to see anything come of it.
We see City’s infamous ‘115 charges’ as a bit like that episode of The Simpsons where Mr Burns has so many diseases that none of them can actually get through the door to make him ill.
None of this is new information, of course. But the conveniently completed Savio deal coming at the precise moment that City put the hammer down in traditional style and start to look ominously capable of completing a double-treble is going to sharpen minds and focus once more.
We’ll no doubt get a fresh flurry of those alarmist stories that have popped up ever since Girona started making mischief in La Liga, pretending that the theoretical possibility of Girona keeping Man City out of the Champions League on ownership rules might ever actually come to pass.
Those rules are well intentioned, but the Red Bull clubs manage it every year and we’re pretty sure the City Football Group can too. Certainly it will not be City who miss out, with whatever ownership hoops are required to be jumped through duly jumped through as and when needed. There is quite literally zero chance of Girona winning La Liga and City coming second in the Premier League and the CFG response being “Ah well, Pep. Hard luck, but it’s going to have to be the Europa League for you.”
Because as this Savio deal shows yet again, multi-club ownership quite obviously doesn’t mean all clubs in the group are equal. It’s called the City Football Group for a reason.