Erling Haaland – goalscorer, goal provider and shirt seller.
Manchester City’s peerless No 9 isn’t just dominating Premier League defences, he’s also helping the club conquer new commercial markets with sales of his shirt “surpassing all expectations” in the early months of his Etihad career.
i can reveal City’s acquisition of a readymade global superstar in Haaland this summer has helped the club’s global kit sales rocket. City have recorded a 101 per cent uplift in 2022-23 kit sales when compared to last season’s figures, selling as many shirts on club channels in two months this season as they did across the whole of last term.
Both the home and away strip are the club’s most popular ever and in the American market – which City have made a priority to chip into over the last couple of years – retail revenues spanning from July to September have recorded an impressive 250 per cent rise.
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A City source has little doubt what has sparked the interest overseas: “July 2022 was a record sales month for the club and was when the Erling Haaland’s squad number and signing was formally revealed, so there’s a pretty clear correlation there. Haaland has proved a massive draw and of course, he’s been brilliant on the pitch as well so there’s little sign of that slowing down.”
Indeed the announcement of Haaland’s shirt number in early July also prompted huge spikes in sales in Norway, Sweden and Germany – all markets where City have had record sales. Across the whole of Scandanavia it’s understood 51 per cent of their sales have been Haaland shirts.
City’s No 9 is just 22 years old but already gaining fast on Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, who traditionally sell the most shirts across the world. The sense of a changing of the guard is inescapable – something that was acute during the Manchester derby as Haaland hit a hat-trick while Ronaldo brooded on the United bench.
At City, they’ve been waiting for this kind of lift-off. Their recruitment strategy has flirted with the idea of signing one of the game’s elite – a failed move for Lionel Messi a couple of years ago was followed by tentative interest in Ronaldo last year – but Haaland has allowed the club’s huge commercial department to make inroads in markets they’ve been working on for years.
There is understood to be particular satisfaction inside the City hierarchy that the American sales are showing such strong growth.
Success matters and an all-conquering team will always be a draw in any territory. But sources at the club point out that it is also the little things that have helped: City’s kit manufacturers Puma consulted with City Football Group (CFG) employees in New York to enquire about what designs and colour schemes were proving most popular in the American market, for example.
The kit launches and marketing initiatives were partly tailored around what would appeal to the US market, and it was no coincidence that the throwback red and black kit was launched at Nasa’s headquarters in Houston while the team were touring America – a country they will, unsurprisingly, return to next summer.
It’s worth pointing out that these are benefits that have been a long time in the making for City. Football finance expert Dr Daniel Plumley says the club have benefited hugely from being “first mover” in the multi-club model and by continuing to aggressively target new markets.
City’s latest move is the acquisition of Brazilian top-flight club Esporte Club Bahia for £174m, which is due to be rubber stamped before the end of the year if members approve it. The details that have emerged of that partnership throw a fascinating light on how CFG operate and leverage the benefits of bringing new clubs into the group.
i understands that as part of negotiations Bahia have been assured they will be the second most important club in the 13-team group, with £85m of fresh investment guaranteed for signings alongside £34m for infrastructure. But the Brazilian club will be expected to adopt CFG’s central playing philosophy, which is currently the pressing, passing and high tempo, offensive style set by City boss Pep Guardiola.
They will also be expected to hire a coach who plays the City way. Club president Guilherme Bellintani told Brazilian outlet UOL: “The club adapts to City not the other way round, therefore it will be inconceivable not to have a goalkeeper who knows how to play with his feet or a defender who is only physically imposing. It’s also inconceivable to hire a coach just because he won things the previous year. We need to have a coach with a certain game criteria [that matches City’s].”
In exchange, Bahia will tap into a vast scouting database assembled by the hundreds of analysts and scouts employed by CFG throughout all of the territories their other clubs operate in to help them buy the best players and recruit the best coaches.
It will not be the last move CFG make, with officials also interested in another European club to add to Italian side Palermo, who joined the group earlier this year. Both they and Bahia were identified by CFG as clubs with the potential to improve with investment and the know-how the club has on staff.
“Knowledge sharing is at the key of everything City Football Group does,” a City insider told i. Indeed the club has a “Football Intelligence” department dedicated to delivering what they call “actionable insights” to clubs across the group.
For the likes of Liverpool, Sunday’s opponents currently enduring a slump, it is a high bar to meet the constant yearning for improvement and financial power of the champions. One Premier League executive joked to i that adding Haaland felt like City were “tapping in a cheat code” to add to their already impressive armoury.
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“The Premier League is the dominant force in Europe – and is £2bn better off than its main rivals in pure revenue terms – and you’ve got City, who have commercially overtaken Manchester United and Liverpool in recent years and have just started to become a dominant force commercially in the Premier League.”
But, he added: “It’s still a big six in England and those other clubs are still financial and sporting powerhouses. City’s commercial profile is still a possibility for United or Liverpool.
“Looking at the technological advancement of stadiums and how you start to interact with fans directly that will change the face of broadcasting, they are things coming down the track that offer opportunity. Lots of other clubs are doing that well, not just City, and they’ll all be looking to outdo each other.
“So the prospect of them pulling away on their own feels unlikely, but it is the clubs underneath I feel sorry for.”
There is no let up from the Etihad.
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