The owner of English Premier League champions Manchester City is considering the possibility of buying a football club in Malaysia, said Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman.
It was one of the matters discussed between the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Manchester City delegation led by chief executive officer Ferran Soriano when both parties met at KBS Tower on Thursday.
"The meeting today is to see how we can work and collaborate closely to develop football. There were many things discussed... for example, the possibility of Manchester City [City Football Group] buying one of the clubs in Malaysia.
"From the ministry’s perspective, we would also like to see maybe collaboration in terms of development of youth through the National Football Development Programme (NFDP) as well as the Mokhtar Dahari Academy (AMD).
"There will be future visits to see how we can move forward on this collaboration," he told reporters after the meeting.
City Football Group was founded in 2014 and Manchester City's first sister club was established in New York.
Beside Manchester City, the group also owns and has shares in New York City FC (United States), Melbourne City (Australia), Yokohama F Marinos (Japan), Atletico Torque (Uruguay), Girona FC (Spain) and, the latest addition to their portfolio, Sichuan Jiniu (China).
"We see Malaysia has an opportunity for football [as] the level of enthusiasm of the fans is obvious. The development of Malaysian football and the league in the last year with investment by the government shows that there’s great opportunity.
"We would like to explore things to do together with the Malaysian people and Malaysian football family. Malaysian football will grow significantly in the next decade," Soriano said.
However, he did not reveal the name of the club that the group was interested in buying.
Bernama
Fri May 24 2019
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