Man City committed to playing beautiful football, says club CEO
dubai — Manchester City’s slick passing game under Pep Guardiola has won admirers all over the world. And Ferran Soriano, the club CEO, said the Citizens will continue to enthral fans with stylish football.
“Manchester City is committed to playing beautiful football. We have shown in the last few years that we are consistent and we play beautiful football,” Soriano said at the 13thDubai International Sports Conference on Wednesday.
The former vice president and general manager of Barcelona predicted a rosy future for City, the reigning Premier League champions.
“We want to play good football and win,” he said. “We don’t want to win by playing any kind of football. We are confident and we know that by playing this way, we will win a lot of trophies in the next 10 years.”
Soriano then praised Dubai’s initiative to promote the game of football. “Football is the number one sport in the world by far. It’s great to come to the Middle East and attend this conference. There is so much interest for the game here. It’s really good to see. I think all these conferences are good,” he said.
Soriano also said that he would not be surprised if Dubai’s Globe Soccer Awards become as big as the Ballon d’Or in future.
“Maybe yes. The important thing is that it’s the 10th year of the awards now in Dubai. It’s very impressive,” he told reporters in the Mixed Zone.
Meanwhile, Miguel Angel Gil Marin, CEO of Atletico Madrid, said his team has shown the world how smaller clubs can challenge giants like Real Madrid and Barcelona.
“Atletico Madrid have learned in the last 100 years how to compete with big clubs,” Gil Marin said at the conference.
“Thanks to our academy, we have been able to replace players that we lose in the transfer market. And thanks to the value of the support of our fans, we have been able to compete with the big teams every year,” he added.