Defiance was the word that stood out as Manchester City returned home for the first time since they were found guilty of 114 financial charges by the Premier League in a case that’s made headlines around the world.

City showed a measure of it on the pitch, even as they lost 4-2 to holders, Qatari-owned Paris Saint-Germain, in the Champions League group stages on Wednesday.

Among the home fanbase at the Etihad Stadium, DW found universal support for City’s Abu Dhabi owners — headed by Sheikh Mansour, who is also UAE’s vice president and deputy prime minister.

“I’m all in with the ownership now,” said local fan Matt. “If we end up back in League Two [fourth tier], so be it. We’ve got 15 years of memories we wouldn’t have otherwise and to me it’s just an accounting line on a spreadsheet really.”

Tarnished trophies?

The stadium name itself is a reminder of the takeover that changed this club, and its part of Manchester, in 2008. The national airline of the UAE, Etihad’s inflated sponsorship of City is among the key planks of the case against them, while many buildings and businesses around the stadium bear the brand. It’s a stadium that’s also seen plenty of success of late.

“We’ve seen things other fans will never see,” added fellow City fan Josh. “I think people have got to consider how many people this club has given great memories to, how many people’s lives have been changed by it, myself included….you’ve got to be grateful for that.”

Though many in sky blue shared those sentiments, most outside the club now view the trophies won in the relevant period as tarnished. On top of that, critics point to City’s reticence in providing evidence in their case, the long-documented human rights abuses in UAE and the often dismissive tone with which the owners have dealt with being found guilty of charges they have now appealed.

UAE links have Burnham on back foot

But those City fans appear to have one powerful ally in British Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Though he has since sought to tone down his position on Mansour and co. somewhat, the former mayor of Greater Manchester said he “would be really concerned to lose them,” after the verdict was announced in late September. “They’ve been such a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester,” he added.

While Burnham has since denied being close to City’s ownership, even as City were playing on Wednesday, The Guardian reported a club representative was invited on a government-backed trade delegation to India this week by Burnham’s successor as Manchester mayor, Bev Craig.

Earlier the same day, Burnham was forced to confirm he had two additional dinners with the club chair, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, at the Etihad Stadium, having previously declared those only as matchday hospitality. It has become a serious domestic issue for the man who replaced Keir Starmer in July.

What is clear is that Burnham welcomed Abu Dhabi investment during his time in charge of the northwestern city. This came mainly in the form of residential and commercial buildings as well as libraries and sports centers, all popping up in previously run-down areas in and around the stadium.

UAE build where others can’t

Georgina Blakeley, a Professor at the University of Huddersfield who wrote a book called “The regeneration of east Manchester,” told DW that UAE investment has transformed swathes of the city.

“One of the prime drivers for building this partnership with the Abu Dhabi United Group [a private equity arm of the state mostly concerned with the football club] was that at that point in time, 2014, there was no other private investor willing to invest at the scale that the council wanted. And to do so in a way that created a build-to-rent market,” she said.

The UAE investment in Manchester, accelerated by the Manchester Life Partnership with the city’s council signed in 2014, has been a key defense for the City owners and fans when faced with sportswashing allegations in the past. And while Blakeley believes councils in the UK are often forced to seek foreign investment, there has been some pushback on how east Manchester has changed.

“A lot of people would be critical of some of the developments in [the districts of] Ancoats and New Islington and say that it’s gentrified the area and there are some tensions between newer populations coming in and living in the more expensive flats and those already there. I think there’s some truth to it. But I also think there’s some truth to the fact that people forget really, really quickly that if you go back to just the 1990s, Ancoats was a no-go area,” she said.

While profit for both council and state have certainly been a driver of the partnership, Blakeley thinks that forging greater links to the community could be something City’s owners see “as a beneficial side effect.”

State-owned clubs starting to think smart despite concerns

After 18 years in the club and city, the UAE are deeply embedded in this part of Manchester. With political ties between the UK and UAE now reportedly strained as a result of the charges, there are suggestions that City’s owners will try to sell the club. They may also be forced to do so, with sanctions still to be decided pending City’s appeal.

There is no such trouble at PSG, who look capable of winning a third straight Champions League powered by their own Gulf-State coffers.

What is clear is that state-owned football clubs can become successful fast in a free market, as the Premier League was when the UAE owners arrived. Deep pockets, strong contacts at the top tables of the sport and canny strategies to integrate with the local area can be a heady mix.

It’s certainly one that’s proved intoxicating to City’s fans, who brush off secret second contracts, sham sponsorship and unreliable witnesses with a loyalty built on success, community and investment. Judging by the mood in Manchester on Wednesday, no sanctions are going to change that.

Edited by: Jonathan Harding

Weight-loss medications, data and AI offer significant opportunities for fitness operators, but also raise challenges around education, commercial partnerships, security and member relationships, according to speakers at W3Fit in Malta, which is currently taking place in Malta.

The panel, The Fork in the Road, was moderated by operator turned consultant, Justin Musgrove, and featured Anders Carlbark, CEO of Swedish operator STC; Nicole Nason, director of international franchise development at Gold’s Gym; and Myzone founder, Dave Wright. 

Musgrove highlighted the commercial opportunities surrounding GLP-1 medicines, with operators such as Life Time already incorporating weight-loss medication into clinical services alongside personalised fitness programmes.

For Carlbark, the growth of treatment creates an opportunity for gyms to deliver exercise support alongside healthcare providers. STC is exploring partnerships, but he argued that operators must secure a fair return for their contribution to patients’ success.

“We’re getting approached by a lot of different partnerships, but they’re not really here to give us a fair share. It’s more a referral code, or maybe we’ll convert some members for them. That’s what we’re not going to accept,” he said. “We need to be sure that we’re getting paid for that type of partnership.”

Preparing staff to support members appropriately and establishing where responsibility sits between the operator, trainer and prescriber are key challenges. Carlbark said those responsibilities must be agreed before a partnership begins.

Nason highlighted the difficulty of establishing a consistent approach across countries with different legal frameworks. She also drew parallels with her experience of members following bariatric surgery, recalling people arriving for exercise having been unable to eat enough and passing out. She cautioned that reduced food intake and tiredness could also mean some GLP-1 users exercise less, rather than increasing their activity as operators might anticipate.

“In order for us to be safe, successful, and make sure that our members have access to resources, we need to rely on our education partners,” she said.

Musgrove’s takeaway was “education, education, education”, arguing that the sector needs to catch up with changing member needs.

Technology

Carlbark expects AI to enable expansion with a lower head-office cost base, freeing resources for clubs and member experience. He described how STC has structured its business data, developed its own dashboards and cancelled software services it no longer needs.

“We can invest more, not in the head office, but really back to the gyms, back to our staff, back to the training experience,” he said.

However, operators need to organise their data, teach systems to understand the business and ask relevant questions. Carlbark warned that without that preparation, AI can deliver confident, rapid answers that are wrong.

“You need to understand your business, otherwise you can get lost in this,” he said.

Nason described a demonstration in which an OpenAI contact created a branded platform intended to connect with franchisees’ CRM systems across territories in around 30 minutes. While impressed by the potential, she remained concerned about security and the pace of change.

“I’m optimistic. I think it’s an opportunity. We are absolutely missing the boat if you don’t utilise it, but it hasn’t won my heart yet, and no, I don’t trust it,” she said.

Wright argued that AI’s value lies in freeing staff from tasks and providing useful information to build relationships.

“What it doesn’t do is talk to your members face to face,” he said. “It’s all about the people and making sure that that frees those tasks up, so you can have better engagement with the actual customers.”

Carlbark sees hyper-personalisation as an opportunity to make fitness more relevant and influence behaviour, while Wright highlighted the role of social connections in encouraging activity.

According to Myzone’s analysis, users with four or more connections exercise 41 per cent more than those without, while those receiving likes or comments from four or more people in a month exercise 138 per cent more.

“If someone nudges four or more other people in the month, they exercise 157 per cent more,” Wright said, arguing that greater activity could support retention.

Wright also revealed that Myzone is developing functionality to log strength workouts.

Responding to a question from Cameron Saunders, CEO of UK Active, about how far membership penetration could grow, Musgrove predicted that one in three Americans could become gym members within the audience’s lifetime. He also identified emerging markets as a substantial growth opportunity and and predicted that the next five years would be a golden period for investment and transactions in the sector.

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Gianni Infantino gave an apology to the toughest critics who want to oust him as FIFA president but no new details or documents on issues that most concern them at a showdown meeting of the ruling council of soccer’s governing body on Thursday.

Infantino provided no documents about the $4.2 billion World Cup sell-off plan he launched and quickly dropped in July.

Nor did he give details to explain the Folarin Balogun red-card case at the World Cup or how U.S. President Donald Trump intervened to help the national team forward.

FIFA will, however, review whether to continue awarding the peace prize that was created to give to Trump last December.

Infantino was pressed by European soccer officials for written evidence about his secretive private equity plan for the World Cup with investor Joshua Kushner, which provoked a global rift and the biggest crisis of his near 11-year presidency.

He frustrated them further by asking for written questions, FIFA vice president Debbie Hewitt said after the 3 1/2-hour meeting that is the last before a Nov. 18 deadline to field an election candidate to challenge him.

“The man has to answer those questions. If he doesn’t answer those questions, no, he is not fit to be the FIFA president,” said Hewitt, who leads the English Football Association.

Infantino did not meet with media at FIFA headquarters Thursday.

Euro officials seek answers and allies to pressure InfantinoEuropean soccer’s ruling body UEFA is leading attempts to remove Infantino before or at the FIFA presidential election in March and heard little to change that view Thursday.

“No satisfactory answers were provided,” said German soccer leader Bernd Neuendorf, one of eight UEFA delegates in the 37-member FIFA Council that Infantino chairs.

The council is the main decision-making body at FIFA with a global spread of officials – most are presidents of their national federation, like Cindy Parlow Cone of the U.S. – who are elected by their continental soccer bodies for four-year terms.

FIFA pays each an annual stipend of $250,000, with $300,000 for the continental presidents.

Infantino infuriated soccer leaders in Europe, North America and Asia by working for months in secret on the Kushner plan. It deepened a long-standing perception in UEFA that the FIFA boss plans his biggest projects without consulting them.

“We need a person of integrity, someone who can be expected to restore the reputation of the association, which has undoubtedly been lost,” Neuendorf told reporters.

Infantino did start the meeting by apologizing to his Council colleagues for blindsiding them and creating a furor over his private investor plan with Kushner that was revealed in media reports nine days after the World Cup final in July.

“He said that with some contrition,” Hewitt said.

Support for Infantino comes from AfricaFor most of the last 50 years, FIFA voters from Africa – which now counts 54 of the 211 member federations – have been key to gaining and staying in power.

“The key point for us,” said FIFA Council member Ahmed Yahya, the head of Mauritania’s soccer federation, “is that we see Gianni as the right person to continue leading football.” Infantino’s offer to add $15 million in FIFA funding to each of the 211 members over the next four years made progress Thursday.

“I’ve said that President Gianni Infantino is taking football forward worldwide,” Yahya said. “I come from the African continent and know what I’m talking about.

The FIFA presidential election meeting is on March 18 in Rabat, Morocco – a political ally of Infantino, whose soccer leader Fouzi Lekjaa is an influential council member and which will co-host the 2030 World Cup.

Next FIFA Council in Qatar which is supporting InfantinoThe FIFA Council should next meet on Dec. 16 in Doha, Qatar – the 2022 World Cup host that still is loyal to Infantino.

Another ally is Azerbaijan – whose most senior soccer official Elkhan Mammadov is an aide in Infantino’s inner circle – which will host a global boys’ tournament for under-15 teams later this month. That event shapes to be a lobbying opportunity for his campaign.

FIFA also will host an online extra congress on Nov. 23 – five days after the candidate deadline – to confirm hosts for the Women’s World Cup in 2031 and 2035. The only bids are a U.S.-Mexico-Costa Rica-Jamaica plan for 2031 and the four British federations for 2035.

UEFA pursues legal action against FIFA, Infantino and Kushner in the U.S.UEFA also has asked courts in the United States for the right to get evidence for a criminal complaint against Infantino in Switzerland. The court filings allege possible mismanagement of FIFA finances in the value he put on the intended subsidiary running tournament commercial rights.

It was to be at least 20% owned by investors led by Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

FIFA lawyers’ filings in response to stall or stop the evidence requests said they were a “smear campaign” by UEFA.