“There’s nothing as global as football: it’s the fastest growing sport everywhere.” This is how Ferran Soriano, CEO of the City Football Group, started his talk at a new Matins Esade session. Matins Esade is a venue for business discussions hosted by Esade Alumni and held at Esade where executives from leading firms set out their vision of their industry and the companies they lead.

Soriano, an Esade alumnus, reviewed his industry while stressing that “football teams are worth more today than yesterday” and that “it’s an attractive industry to invest in because it’s growing.” He added: “I’m sure that Manchester City FC will still be here in 100 years. Will Google still be here in 100 years?”

He pointed out that in this industry “most of the customers you have to persuade are not at home, which is a challenge and an opportunity,” citing as an example that, for Manchester City FC, the English market ranks at number five while the Chinese market is its main market. “In football we generate content that people consume for entertainment, but it is also a community, a tribe and a part of the social fabric.”

The City Football Group’s CEO looked at the risks the business is facing. In his view, the most significant risk is whether children in the future would rather play a virtual game than watch people playing on television. “We compete by entertainment and tribe, and maybe there are things that aren’t football that compete using the same thing,” he noted.

A football multinational

The Matins Esade speaker reviewed the unique features of the company he leads, which has 7 football clubs, a presence in over 20 countries and offices in 12. “We are a football multinational: it is a risky business model but, for the moment at least, it is working.”

During the session, Soriano also looked at how the teams in the City Football Group, alongside Manchester City FC, had been acquired. They include: a side set up from scratch, NY City Football Club, “an idea that we had already explored at Barça,” he said; Melbourne City Football Club, a team the group bought which was previously called Melbourne Heart and “slightly renamed”; a club in Japan from Nissan, Yokohama F. Marinos; Club Atlético Torque in Uruguay; Girona FC “which has a chance to become a first division team with growth possibilities”; and Sichuan Jiuniu in the Chinese province of Sichuan which “with 100 million inhabitants has enormous reach”.

“We are very interested in the Indian market,” said Soriano. “The world in the next decade will have a population of 8 billion, most of them middle class, who will need entertainment and half of whom live in China and India.”

Asked about the African continent, Ferran Soriano said that “it is an exciting continent for football.”  He went on to add: “We are looking for growth, talent and a solid setting. There are few well-established leagues in Africa, but we are interested in Africa and when we find the right team and the right league, we won’t rule it out.”