INCHEON, SOUTH KOREA - JULY 30: Fans show their support during the preseason friendly match between Atletico Madrid and Manchester City at Seoul World Cup Stadium on July 30, 2023 in Incheon, South Korea. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)
Manchester City are cheered on in Korea in 2023
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When Ferran Soriano took over as Manchester City CEO, he had the challenge of taking them from one market to the next. Each of them was fine in their own right, but as ambitions grew on the pitch the club had to start targeting different sponsorship and partnership deals.
Commercial offices were set up in Shanghai more than a decade ago and there were bases in Singapore and Tokyo. City began to target the companies and the fans that Manchester United were wooing, to the extent that they would often finish a presentation and see their counterparts coming into the room to pitch as they were packing up their stuff.
United had two things then that City did not: decades of success and the power of a superstar player, with Park Ji-Sung a hero for his exploits in the great Sir Alex Ferguson teams towards the end of his tenure. Chinese defender Sun Jihai meant more had heard of City in Asia than they might otherwise have done and the 2008 takeover had further put them on the map, but they were far from where they wanted to be.