Exclusive: English Premier League giants Manchester City are the new owners of Melbourne Heart

EXCLUSIVE: English Premier League giants Manchester City are the new owners of Melbourne Heart after a dramatic takeover.

ENGLISH Premier League giants Manchester City are the new owners of struggling A-League side Melbourne Heart, after executing a dramatic takeover early today.

After several days of talks in Melbourne and Sydney, City's senior executives completed the deal which sees them own 80% of Heart, the other 20% to be held by a consortium of businessmen allied to Melbourne Storm including Bart Campbell.

It's believed that until the last minute Heart's existing owners, led by chairman Peter Sidwell, had little idea of City's involvement, but Football Federation Australia gave its approval to the takeover this morning.

The sale comes months after City held cursory talks with Sydney FC, and changes the landscape for both Heart and the A-League, with City CEO Ferran Soriano emphasising the investment "is for the long term" after choosing Australia as the UAE-backed club's latest outpost following the establishment of New York City in the MLS last year.

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Speaking to The Daily Telegraph in Sydney last night, Soriano promised to make no immediate changes at the club at least for the rest of the season, giving the players, coach John van t' Schip and existing management the opportunity to prove they could be part of the new order.

While Soriano promised to put the full resources of City's burgeoning talent development structure behind Heart, he emphasised that the club had to keep its own Australian identity.

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News_Image_File: Ferran Soriano, left, chief executive officer of New York City Football Club and Manchester City FC.

"A very important thing here is that we're here for the long term," Soriano said. "It's not one year or two or three, so if you ask anyone whether football in Australia is going to grow and develop, I think the answer is absolutely yes, very significantly.

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"The numbers of people who like and practice football are self-evident. The question is whether it takes two years or 10 [for the game to grow quickly], but we know we're going to be here for 10 years so we don't care which. We prefer if it goes faster, but if it doesn't we'll still be here.

"This is not a small Manchester team, this is a Melbourne team that will use the resources of the City group. Conceptually they are very different so when people ask if we will bring Manchester City players, I say probably not - we're going to bring the players who are needed in Melbourne.

"We have a network of 36 scouts, who will now be looking for players for Melbourne as well."

With van't Schip having only returned to the coaching role less than a month ago in the wake of John Aloisi's sacking, Soriano said he and the existing squad had earned the right to try to prove themselves.

"In every organisation that you want to improve, the first thing is to listen," he said. "So we will not make any significant changes until the season is finished, also out of respect for the current manager, team and staff.

News_Image_File: Star quality could be heading to Melbourne.

"So we will listen, understand everything in detail, then we will decide very fast and we will execute very fast any changes need to be made. This is the lesson we have learned [from Manchester City and New York City].

"If you look at where Manchester was and is today, it's pretty impressive. But the improvement has been done on the basis of respect for the history, the tradition, and we will do the same thing."

Soriano confirmed that plans were underway to bring the Manchester City squad to Australia to play a game, after the success of the visits last year by bitter rivals Manchester United and Liverpool.

"Yes, we're looking at it," he said. "It's obvious our interest in Australia has been a reality for months, and now it is going to be more clear - one of our aspirations is to bring our English team here, as well as send Australians to Manchester. So we'll be working on this."

Football Federation Australia chief executive David Gallop said the purchase was a huge vote of confidence for Australian football.

"Football has moved into the mainstream of Australian sport and is ideally placed to benefit from the boom in football across Asia," said Gallop.

"Manchester City and their Australian partners have made a strategic investment and I welcome them to our growing competition. It's another sign that the world is taking notice of Australian football.

"Manchester City and their partners will bring a high level of expertise in football and sports business matters and that can only strengthen the Melbourne Heart and the Hyundai A-League as a whole."

While the Australian partners are also part of the ownership group of National Rugby

League (NRL) club Melbourne Storm, Heart and Storm will remain separate entities.

"The arrangements we have approved will see Manchester City have an 80% share," said Gallop. "There may be some common directors between the Heart and the Storm, but we are comfortable with the plan that the Heart will be largely a separately operated business, similar to the arrangements in Newcastle with the Jets and the Knights."

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