City Football Group and Red Bull are two of the mega groups which are trying to build a chain of sister clubs around the globe and according to Sports.ru, both the clubs will come head to head in the coming months for a potential takeover of Russian Premier League club FC Ufa.
City Football Group have reportedly identified Russia as a location for their next major takeover and according to latest developments FC Ufa are set to become the City’s sister club in Russia subject to a takeover in the coming months.
Shamil Gazizov (Chief executive) already has two ‘very good’ offers on the table – from drinks giant Red Bull and from City Football Group.
There are further claims that Manchester City ‘liked’ Ufa’s attitude when they brought Oleksandr Zinchenko in 2016. The report claim that they had an opportunity to to demand more significant money for the Ukrainian international, however they stuck to a lower valuation despite City’s mega wealth in-order for best of development for Zinchenko – an attitude which is much appreciated by CFG.
The optimal point of the potential takeover for City Football Group also lies more politically as the region of Bashkortostan is an oil region which will give ‘a lot of opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation’.
However its reported that FC Ufa’s general director is ‘leaning in this direction’ for a Red Bull takeover – the energy drink company owns the likes of RB Leipzig, Salzburg and New York Red Bulls. Nonetheless there will be less money involved in a deal with Red Bull but the report claims there are ‘more prospects’ – though none of these ‘prospects’ were named.
There are meetings already held, and ‘everything will be decided soon’.
FC Ufa will be CFG’s tenth acquisition. Although another expected deal with French Ligue 2 side AS Nancy is to be the most likely for them to take their portfolio into double figures. However, Russia is certainly not a location to rule out given the recent developments.
