Football, or soccer as our North American chums would have it, is surging in popularity across the Atlantic faster than Christiano Ronaldo weaving his way down the wing.
More than three million children play in youth leagues and the US professional league (MLS) is more popular among 11 to 17 year-olds than Major League Baseball.
Throw in the enormous Hispanic population and it is certainly a market worth speculating in for football businesses.
So it makes sense that Manchester City’s owner – a holding company of the Sheikh Mansour-owned Abu Dhabi United Group – is looking to capitalise on the Premier League’s appeal.
And in teaming up with East Kilbride’s Goals, which has operated its five-a-side centres in California since 2003, it is clearly hoping to appeal to players and not just armchair enthusiasts.
City Football Group (CFG) clearly has faith in Goals’ relatively new management team, which is doing a good job of turning the business around. But even so, it is fair to say that Goals’ expansion in the US has been somewhat slower than the afore-mentioned Portuguese superstar.
Having opened its first centre in Los Angeles, it took three long years for the first match to kick off at its second site. The business has faced hold-ups over acquiring public land from the City of Los Angeles, and its former chief executive Keith Rogers, who had moved to LA to spearhead the group’s growth, abruptly departed in January.
The joint venture deal that will allow Goals to use the Manchester City’s branding – and that of New York City FC – has revitalised its ambitions for North America.
That members of Manchester City’s squad were at the venture’s launch in Los Angeles would indicate that CFG is fully committed to the project.
It may be just the signing Goals needs to finally hit the back of the net in North America.
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