Search results matching tag 'Manchester United'

Manchester City to rebrand as United

1715701 — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:28:00 GMT

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em and all that. The Mirror is reporting that Manchester City will next year be sponsored by Etihad – which translates as ‘united’, and should cause some amusement to their friends at Old Trafford.

What will be less amusing for the Red Devils is that the deal is worth a club record £45m over four years. While City don't exactly need the cash for obvious reasons, the deal does show the club's new status despite currently remaining hopeless on the pitch.

The paper also reports that City's kit manufacturer Le Coq Sportif is to be replace by England kit maker Umbro – that deal will net the club a further £15m.

Inside the mind of master tactician David Pleat

1715701 — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:41:00 GMT

Good evening all…

Ever wondered what goes on inside the mind of David Pleat?

Apparently, a load of incomprehensible gobbledy-gook if this ridiculous feature by The Guardian is anything to go on.

The paper asks ‘Agree? Disgree?’… What? Firstly, I don’t care. And secondly, I have no idea what the relevance of his chalkboard is.

I think – on closer inspection – it tells me that Manchester United defender Namaja Vidic doesn’t give the ball away very much. T’rrific.

If this insight is the sort of thing Pleat scrawls onto the chalkboard during his team briefings its little wonder he finds himself in the commentary box rather than in the dugout these days.

Building brand Rio Ferdinand

1715701 — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:36:00 GMT

In some ways Rio Ferdinand is a typical footballer - massive wage packet, big money career transfers, fancy cars and the occasional brush with controversy, including an eight month ban for missing a drugs test.

But unlike many of his high-profile colleagues, who seem to content themselves with the PlayStation and trips to the bookies, Ferdinand is something of an entrepreneur.

The Manchester United star already runs his own record label ‘White Chalk Records' which he founded four years ago and now plans to launch a free online magazine, entitled Rio.

The magazine will target around half a million 16-35 year-old males surprisingly enough - with the man himself stepping into the shoes of editor-in-chief.

It sounds OK. The first issue includes interviews with 50 Cent and Mickey Rourke promoting his new film ‘The Wrestler'.

The 29 year-old also starred as Jeremy Beadle-esque TV show made by his own production company in which he played pranks on his unwitting team-mates in a show called ‘Rio's World Cup Windups'.

And, as you'd expect, the England man has the usual brand tie-ups with the likes of Nike, for which he is currently starring in an ad campaign.

Long gone are the days of footballers retiring and buying the local pub to see them through their twilight years. But unlike so many modern day footballers Ferdinand looks set to have a colourful career long after his Old Trafford days are behind him.

New York Yankees - sport's biggest brand says farewell to cathedral home

255762 — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 09:51:00 GMT

Much talk over the last few weeks following Sulaiman al-Fahim buying Manchester City to rival Manchester United of what is the world's biggest sporting brand. Despite all the cash and interest surrounding the Premier League arguably the world's biggest sports brand is not a football club at all, but a baseball club and namely the New York Yankees.

You can hardly walk down a street in London without seeing a headful of teenagers wearing Yankees caps in all manner of colours (rather like Turtle in 'Entourage' who seems to have a full wardrobe of colours). It's sort of compulsory street wear with race and colour being no boundary.

This week, of course, marked a major moment in the club's history as it said good-bye to Yankee Stadium, which is to be demolished after 85-years of loyal service.

The Yankees reach into fashion and youth culture goes far beyond the realms of baseball and outstrips the ability of any other sports club, in football or baseball for that matter. Manchester United might come close (the two signed a marketing partnership a few years ago), but beyond that no one can touch the Yankees.

As part of that sporting brand Yankee Stadium has to be the world's most famous.There are certainly many that are bigger, but none as famous or that have had as much impact on their own sport and beyond. Maybe Fenway Park in Boston (home of the Red Sox) and Wrigley Field in Chicago (home of the Chicago Cubs) come close, but these are names about as familiar as Old Trafford, one of football's most famous statdiums granted, to people who have no interest in baseball.

But even Manchester United don't have something like Yankee Stadium that is variously known as the Cathedral of baseball and the "The House That Ruth Built" after ball legend Babe Ruth for whom the stadium was literally built and he hit the stadium's first home run in 1923.

There last days of Yankee Stadium, as the club literally move across the street to their new home and wave goodbye, even managed to get plenty of coverage on this side of the Atlantic where baseball and softball gets little attention. The Guardian, the Independent and The Times all gave coverage to the Yankees this week in what proved to be a good news bad news week for the team.

The very last game at Yankee stadium showed the team on great form as they beat the Baltimore Orioles and Yankees catcher Jose Molina was able to answer what a dying Babe Ruth told fans in a farewell address: "I'm very proud to have hit the first home run in Yankee Stadium. God knows who'll hit the last one". The answer was Molina. He hit a two run homer – the stadium's final home run in a night that also saw Johnny Damon hit a three-run homer.

The bad news for club was that it paid for its inconsistency as it failed to make it to the Post Season play-offs (for the first time since 1993) and a chance to make it to the World Series. A big knock for a club that has won the World Series 26 times, still 2009 will mean a new stadium and a new start - and what a start, a $1.3bn (£880m) stadium project with dimensions to match those of the original Yankee Stadium.

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It's not just the players that need to show respect

1715701 — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:23:00 GMT

The FA's ‘Respect' campaign, which discourages footballers from arguing back to the referee, is doomed to failure so long as the man in charge of the country's biggest club fails to control his players.

The ‘Respect' campaign is a great idea. Unless a player is superhumanly dim, they will soon learn to keep their mouth shut - or face continual suspension. Simple.

But for all the marketing investment by the FA, media attention and endorsement by the game's leading figures the campaign will fail if undermined by its top managers.

Fresh from lambasting Premier League head of referees, Keith Hackett for overturning a red card awarded to Chelsea's John Terry last week, which enabled the player to face United, Alex Ferguson watched his players follow each other into the referee's notebook like lemmings falling off a cliff.

Match referee Mike Riley - the man who suffered such a torrent of abuse from Chelsea's Ashley Cole last march that the FA's Respect campaign was thrust into the headlines - should be applauded for finally putting his foot down and saying enough is enough.

A manager imposes his will and personality on his team through his choices of players and through what he demands of them on and off the field. This is especially true when a manager has been at a club as long as Sir Alex.

Ferguson is far from being the only guilty manager. But he has unparalleled stature and influence - and therefore responsibility.

Many footballers should grow up and show some respect to officials, but sometimes so do the men on the touchline who should really know better.