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Sceptical note about CFG sale

Writing in the Financial Times Tom Braithwaite puts a sceptical view about the acquisition of a stake in City Football Group by Silver Lake under the headline 'Silicon Valley is inflating the football bubble.' Silicon Valley gets accused of lots of things, but this must be a first.

He questions the statement by Silver Lake boss Egon Durban that CFG is 'an impressive global platform of marquee football clubs across five continents.' OK, most of them are second or third rank, but with capacity for growth.

He then goes on to assert that the fan base for Manchester City is 'thin'. It is true that at one time City was very rooted in Manchester and didn't have the global following of United. Indeed, it probably didn't have much of a fan base in Guildford where you could encounter United fans who had never been to Old Trafford. But City is catching up.

The argument that media executives prefer Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea or United doesn't have any evidence to back it up. What they want is a close race for the title.

He also argues that the entire media rights market is on shaky ground. Admittedly the last auction for domestic television rights saw a 10 per cent decline but it was outpaced by overseas rights sales which account for an increasing share of the total sum. He makes no mention of streaming rights.

His explanation for the stake purchase is that Silver Lake wants to cosy up to Abu Dhabi as a pool of global capital, but that seems unlikely. His suggestion that Blackburn Rovers would be a better investment is a lame attempt at a joke.

If I had a pound for every time someone has said the bubble is about to burst, I would have done well.

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