City Football Group

Founded in 2013, City Football Group is the realisation of a business vision by former Barcelona Economy Vice President Ferran Soriano. Soriano first conceived of the ideal of a global football entity while at the Catalan club, beginning with the creation of Barca-branded overseas academies. Soriano contacted Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber about creating a Barcelona-branded MLS franchise, and the pair progressed as far as looking into several locations to place the team, but ultimately these plans were curtailed when Soriano and seven other members of Barcelona's board chose to resign in protest of then-President Joan Laporta's leadership.

After a four-year break from football management, Soriano was hired in late 2012 to replace Garry Cook as CEO of Manchester City following the latter's resignation. Soriano revived his ambitions of creating a global football business entity, beginning by resuming dialogues with Garber. Their discussions resulted in the announcement of New York City as MLS' 20th expansion side less than one year later in May 2013. In the process of managing the creation of a second football team City Football Group was created, designed to be the holding company to which both Manchester City and NYCFC belonged. CFG expanded at the start of 2014 when it partnered with Rugby league side Melbourne Storm to acquire a controlling stake in A-League franchise Melbourne Heart for 12 million Australian dollars. The club would subsequently be rebranded to Melbourne City, and their badge changed to a design similar to New York City's badge as part of CFG's early attempts to synergise their investments as a brand, and the club's colours would slowly be changed to sky blue with their red-and-white stripes retained as away colours.

In the weeks following their purchase of Melbourne City, CFG indicated their intentions of investing in women's football by rebranding Manchester City's female affiliate as Manchester City Women's Football Club, and successfully lobbied for the team to be added to the top tier of the FA Women's Super League, promising to invest in women's football on a scale never before seen in England. Later the following year, CFG would grow again with the purchase of a 20% in Japanese side Yokohama F Marinos, the traditional company team of group sponsor Nissan.

In April 2017, after a near three-year pause in its expansion, City Football Group announced the Uruguayan second-tier side Torque, who would later be renamed Montevideo City Torque. Several months later, Torque would be followed in by Spanish second division club Girona, a club with ownership links to incumbent Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola.

2019 saw the beginning of an increase in CFG's activity. The purchase of Chinese third division club Shenzhen Peng City (known as Sichuan Jiuniu at that time) was followed towards the end of the year by a second venture in Asia, when the group bought a controlling stake in Indian Super League franchise Mumbai City. 2020 similarly would see two club purchases in European football, first of Lommel of Belgium and then of Troyes of France, with both acquisitions occurring amid financial challenges faced by clubs across European football during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the same year they would also expand their business interests by taking sole control of US-based five-a-side football business Goals Soccer Centers, a business they had previously invested in, following the near-collapse of the company's owners due to an internal scandal.

In March 2022, Dutch second-tier side NAC Breda announced that following an investigation into the best bidders to sell the club's shares, the shareholders of the club had agreed to a sale to CFG. In response, the club's fans held protests both in Breda, and also Manchester and Lommel. A month later, a group of shareholders with key voting rights announced that, in light of the backlash, they had elected instead to sell their shares to a local consortium.

In December 2025, due to uncertainty in Indian football, CFG divested their shares in Mumbai City, marking the end of their six-year stint as majority owners. In June 2026 Nissan purchased all CFG owned shares in Yokohama F. Marinos.

Branding and player development

Early growth in the group focused on teams sharing a common identity and an associated brand, which aligned with the traditional identity of Manchester City and was viewed as a key way of helping the Manchester club build up its foreign support. This also matched Soriano's well-reported interest in placing City Football Group as a lynchpin in the opening-up of national markets in which association football has not previously been able to secure a strong presence, through the operation of and investment in franchises in those countries.

The first entity to join CFG was the newly created New York City, with the club announcing that they would sport the familiar sky blue kit with white shorts which Manchester City have traditionally been associated with, and the rebranded Melbourne City (originally named Melbourne Heart) similarly switched to sky blue after defeating challenges from fellow A-League club Sydney. With the purchase of Mumbai City and the renaming of Club Atletico Torque to Montevideo City Torque, five teams in the group feature the word "City" in their name, and similarly all five wear sky blue kits. NYCFC's circular badge design would also be mimicked by the majority of the clubs in CFG: Melbourne City, Manchester City, Mumbai City, Torque, Girona, Lommel, and Shenzhen Peng City all went on to adopt badges with the same basic style. Following from these changes, it was reported that the company's aim was to own a team on each continent with the "City" brand in its name. They have aggressively defended the City brand, issuing a cease and desist letter against the Chilean side Santiago City for using a club crest similar to Manchester City's.

Developments within Manchester City's academy would ultimately lead to a shift in strategy and focus of the group. Efforts to continue their success in bringing through youth talent led to the buying of promising players in the early teenage years, many of whom would go on to be sold for a large profit. This prompted Soriano and CFG's executive management to change their ambitions to put more emphasis on purchasing smaller clubs in strong existing football markets, with the intention of turning them into specialists centres for acquiring and training future stars from their local areas.

Businesses

Goals Soccer Centres

On 25 July 2017, City Football Group signed a joint venture partnership with Goals Soccer Centres, a 5-a-side football pitch operator, to invest capital into the US operations of the company in order to expand across North America. On 3 February 2020, CFG purchased the remaining 50% to take full ownership of the joint venture