No one knows who they are, say advertising agency

Sounding more and more like a supervillain with every day that passes, Manchester City executive chairman Garry Cook (pictured above, probably thinking about money) this week revealed plans to turn the club into the ‘Virgin of Asia and the world’ - he expects to City-branded cars, restaurants, energy drinks and motorcycle helmets in the coming years.

His ambitious plans, however, may be thwarted on two counts: firstly, with the exception of the Eastlands faithful, no football fan in the world will eat a City burger, put City smoke alarms in their house or brush with City toothpaste. Secondly, according to the BBDO advertising agency, City are not among Europe’s top 25 most recognisable brands. In fact, in terms of mid- and long-term advertising revenue potential, they are beaten by Lille, Stuttgart and Benfica.

Here are the top 25, where the bracketed figure represents brand value:

Real Madrid ($1.498B)
FC Barcelona ($1.336B)
Manchester United ($1.299B)

Shinawatra’s best friend didn’t get the memo

Just a few days ago, City executive chairman Garry Cook was boasting about how Manchester City will be more popular than Coca-Cola around the world, thanks to the ten year plan of a disgraced former Thai Prime Minister. He also assured us that the Citizens were financially stable and uninterested in attracting additional investors:

“I was in Beijing last week,” began Cook, “sitting with [Thaksin Shinawatra] and the second richest man in China and other guys. They all want to be part of Manchester City. I’ve had representatives of companies from Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait on. Some of those representatives have actually phoned the supporters’ club because they couldn’t find the club number. So I get the supporters’ club secretary saying to me, ‘So the club is for sale, then, because I’ve got Anwar on the phone from Saudi Arabia?’ This club is not for sale.”

The man who wants a break-away league of 10-14 clubs obviously wasn’t kept in the loop on this one…

[Quote: The Guardian]