Manchester City buy Melbourne Heart

[Old Gregg]

http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/a-league ... akes-Heart

[Stuckey]

Wow huge news. Might be the boost Heart need.
I hope they don't start wearing sky blue though!

[Stuckey]

Heart applied to have their name changed last week.

[Old Gregg]

jeeeeez....
ownership is one thing but they need to at least maintain some sort of continuity with name/colours I would think.
Then again they've got no supporters to alienate anyway.

[Stuckey]

Yeah the club has only been around 5 years so its not like there is a massive amount of tradition and culture to change. I guess we'll see how we go though.

[EdDog]

Can only be a good thing. Poorly set up franchise to begin with.

[Stuckey]

Can only be a good thing. Poorly set up franchise to begin with.

I disagree. I think from the get go they had a great plan. I feel they broke off more then they could chew trying to get into futsal and basketball. But the engagement levels they put into the community were great. They were really working on trying to build a good youth set up but sadly under Aloisi that seemed to get a bit lost.
Hopefully they can get back to about 2 seasons ago and continue on from there.

[EdDog]

^ it wasn't from a lack of trying, I agree.

But they never could really identify themselves, and basically just took some of Victories supporters.

[Stuckey]

^ it wasn't from a lack of trying, I agree.

But they never could really identify themselves, and basically just took some of Victories supporters.

Yeah agree. They also picked up some people that missed the Victory boat. Much like the people who still hate on AUFC we would almost get another HAL side in Adelaide with them.
I think they were really trying to capture the South Melbourne crowds but haven't really been about to.

http://www.foxsports.com.au/football/li ... 6808380279
More info if you don't have Fox.

[shinAUFC]

I think its a positive.

Most of the Heart fans will stay on i think, consider you love the game and hate victory... its just logical.

It will probably attract alot of new interest from within melbourne also.

Victory will be shitting themselves as they may not be the big club in melbourne for much longer. You would expect melbourne city will attract a very big name marquee next season ...

going to be interesting!

[Stuckey]

Melbourne Heart will be renamed Melbourne City FC at the conclusion of the 2013-2014 season, with the club's new ownership keen to bring the A-League team into line with its other properties.

http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/news/117 ... lace-Heart

At least that clears up any confusion for now.

[sevengoals]

Has the bar just been moved?



http://www.theguardian.com/football/blo ... t-takeover


http://www.theguardian.com/football/201 ... urne-heart

[Interloper]

Didn't man city try this with Perth a few years ago?

One of the positives of the current ownership at Adelaide United is that they'll never end up like this.

[EdDog]

I can see a lot of pros and a lot of cons with this. I guess we'll have to wait and see how it all pans out. Hopefully for the better.

[Old Gregg]

I can see a lot of pros and a lot of cons with this. I guess we'll have to wait and see how it all pans out. Hopefully for the better.

Pros for the league as a whole, and for Heart fans that don't mind their club being a satellite of a megaclub on the other side of the world.

I would be spewing if AUFC sold out in this way though. Inter-club links and agreements, fine. Actually being owned by another club? Get fucked.