When Levien den Boer (39) went to see the first team of VV Baronie, the highest playing amateur club in Breda last weekend, he did not come for football in the first place. Den Boer wanted to taste the atmosphere, experience the club feeling, see if there were many volunteers around. He liked what he saw. “I thought, this could become an important part of my life,” he says. “Barony would be like methadone to me. Not the real deal, but the best alternative without heroin”.
His heroin, that is NAC, the professional club in Breda where Den Boer has been going since he was four. He met his friends there, maintained a news site about NAC for many years and made numerous podcasts about the club. Den Boer, communication advisor in daily life at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague, does not see NAC as an addiction that he wants to get rid of. But if the owners have their way with the sale of the club, he sees no other option. “Then I hand in my card, then I don’t go anymore,” says Den Boer.
The major shareholders of NAC, three wealthy businessmen who together own about two-thirds of the shares, want to sell the club to Manchester City. Or more precisely: to the City Football Group (CFG). That is the football conglomerate of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family. If it is up to the current owners, NAC will reportedly become part of a kind of franchise company for around 7 million euros, which includes top club Manchester City, including SK Lommel, Troyes AC, Melbourne City, Girona FC, New York City FC and Mumbai City. FC belong. Whether the deal goes through depends on the judgment of the Noad Foundation, a four-member body with representatives from youth academy, fans and former players that owns a ‘golden share’ and watches over the club’s culture and traditions. If they reject the takeover, they must come up with an alternative within six weeks.
Tradition of Financial Troubles
Major shareholder Wim van Aalst sees CFG as the ideal buyer for NAC. In contrast to the Breda club, which is in the middle of the Eerste Divisie with a turnover of around 9 million euros and a long tradition of financial problems, the City group has enormous financial strength. Moreover: “At City it is only and exclusively about football”, Van Aalst wrote in the beginning of this week a letter to smaller shareholders. “Their network is the best guarantee to return to the Eredivisie.” According to transport entrepreneur Van Aalst, who is in charge of the sales process, “the ambition to be successful is in City’s genes”.
The fanatical supporters of NAC are not impressed by those arguments. Within half an hour of the club announcing an agreement between City and shareholders, the various supporter groups (“sections”) had reached a common position: they shouldn’t have City. The English still held a presentation in Breda to convince the fans of their plans. They promised to delve “intensely” into the club culture. It was about investments in the first team, the youth academy, “passionate, attacking football”. All in vain. For the hard core, the idea of NAC giving up its autonomy and becoming an affiliate of a global franchise company is unpalatable. The morning after the presentation, Breda supporters traveled to Manchester, Lommel and Troyes to nail banners to the stadium gates: ‘Stay out of our territory. NAC is not a City Group story†
It’s not surprising that fans and owners think differently about what’s good for the club. The mutual relationship is characterized by distrust and alienation. Supporters accuse shareholders and management of mismanagement and responsibility for the years of sporting decline. Thirteen trainers worn by NAC in the past ten years, administrators came and went as if they were interim positions. Policymakers at the club believe that the fanatical supporters have an unhealthy influence, constantly stir up unrest. The situation escalated at the end of last season when trainer Maurice Steijn left under great pressure from supporters because he felt threatened (the police later said that nothing criminal had happened). The three major shareholders, who joined in 2014, subsequently announced that they would sell their interests in the club.
At the same time, the battle for NAC ownership represents something bigger, something beyond the club. It is about the sustainability of the traditional idea of a small, autonomous professional club as part of and for the local community versus the modern approach of a football company such as the City Football Group. Football through the eyes of a consultant: as a global entertainment industry in which economies of scale are up for grabs, efficiency gains can be made and financial returns are leading.
Walt Disney
The City model has its origins around 2006, when Manchester City was still a relatively small club that narrowly escaped relegation from the Premier League. No one had heard of Sheikh Mansour in the northern English town. In February of that year, Spaniard Ferran Soriano, former consultant and then financial director of FC Barcelona, gave a presentation at the University of London outlining his vision for the future of professional football. Rapidly growing revenues from TV rights and merchandise would see a handful of top clubs evolve from circus-style ventures focused on local entertainment to “entertainment companies like Walt Disney,” Soriano’s slides said. He envisioned ‘global franchises with powerful brands’, coupled with ‘small local’ [clubs]†
At FC Barcelona, Soriano was unable to carry out his plan. In 2008, the same year that Sheikh Mansour became the owner of Manchester City, Soriano left Barca over a dispute in the board. Four years later, he became a director at City and began building the City Football Group. According to an American model. With the difference that football players – unlike NBA or Major League baseball players – represent value in the form of transfer fees. This makes the creation of a football conglomerate even more financially attractive. You can let young talents gain experience at smaller clubs within the group so that they become more valuable, and then promote them within the group or sell them.
“We believe (…) that trading non-core players is profitable,” CFG summed up in a confidential talent development plan leaked several years ago via Football Leaks† “Lending players is the best route for developing players and creating value.” The club expected a 24 percent return on investment.
“In theory, all parties involved benefit from it,” said football economist Kieran Maguire (University of Liverpool) of City’s strategy. “The parent company in the form of brand awareness, talent development and the opportunity to experiment with new football insights on a large scale. The small clubs because they gain access to knowledge, facilities and a reservoir of players that would otherwise remain inaccessible.” According to Maguire, the motivation for CFG to add European clubs to the group has become even greater due to Brexit. Since then, City has been unable to bring EU players under the age of 18 to England. Satellite clubs then offer the opportunity to capture young European talents.
Also read: Cult club NAC, the concern child of Manchester City (2018)
In Breda they have been familiar with the supposed advantages of the City model for years. NAC entered into a partnership with the club from Manchester in 2016. He invested in the training complex and sent a handful of rental players to Breda every summer, including trendsetters such as creative midfielder Manu García, attacker Thierry Ambrose and defender José Angeliño. NAC only had to pay board and lodging, the salaries were paid by City.
However, the euphoria was short-lived. Other City mercenaries turned out to be much less good, sometimes even downright bad. But NAC did have a best-efforts obligation to set up borrowed players for at least half the number of playing minutes in the Eredivisie, against even three-quarters of the available playing time in the Eerste Divisie, where the club soon ended up. The ‘dream’, as the then general manager of NAC called it at the start of the collaboration, to see the big stars from the Champions League play in the NAC stadium, remained just that: a dream. Last summer, the five-year deal with City expired, it was not renewed.
scare
A deal with City is therefore no guarantee of sporting success, NAC supporters know. This image is confirmed by a look across the border, at City satellites SK Lommel and Troyes. The latter is fifteenth in the French Ligue 1 and is not yet safe from relegation. Lommel, who was incorporated by CFG in the summer of 2020, is penultimate at the second level in Belgium and has worn out three trainers this season. Chairman Paul Kerkhofs said in an interview last year that City has plans for a smaller stadium and mainly wants to focus on the “digital experience” for people who watch matches at home.
It is a nightmare for fanatical NAC supporters, such as Levien den Boer. Despite the agreement between shareholders and City, he is hopeful that the deal will fail. Den Boer expects the Noad Foundation to reject the acquisition by CFG because it goes against everything NAC stands for, he says. Supporters and sponsors are already preparing an alternative offer. Karel Vrolijk, a local building contractor who was in the race to buy NAC before City came forward, also said he was still interested.
Den Boer: „I am already looking forward to the first home game after City has dropped out. The atmosphere in the stadium will then be electric.”