Poster boy turned rebel

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Few products sell without advertisements. In a world where customers are spoilt for choices, good marketing gives a product an edge often regar-dless of its true quality or utility. The same is true in football. The Abu Dhabi royal family’s Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan knows that very well too.

When Mansour decided to buy Manchester City and wash their misfortune off with his petro-dirhams, he looked for an advertisement tool. In September, 2008, when Mansour completed the take-over of City, he converted a few extra dirhams in his pockets to around £32.5 million. In came Brazilian star Robinho from Real Madrid. The fleet-footed Brazilian was his perfect marketing tool. Pictures of Robinho in his new colours were flashed all over the world. Everyone with access to a newspaper or internet knew the big footballing story — a very rich has Sheikh has bought City. But like in the case of most marketing, Robinho remained just that — a brand well known, but of little utility.
A year later, Mansour put more thought on the quality of his product and decided to spend wiser. In July, 2009, he spent a figure reported to be around £40 million for another South American. This time, the target was truly a more committed player and the best part, he was available right across the town. The work-horse Tevez switched the famous red jersey of Manchester United for the sky blue. ‘Welcome to Manchester.’ Mansour’s new advertisement not just marketed his product successfully but also took a good dig at the main rival. It was more of, ‘Welcome to capitalism, Fergie.’
Unlike Robinho, Carlos Tevez was a success on field. Powered by his goals, City finished fifth in the league that season. A year later, under Tevez’s captaincy, City clinched the FA Cup — their first major trophy since 1967. This time the billboards showed the poster boy with a trophy in the hand.
But then Tevez became the face of some other products too. Terms like ‘bad English weather,’ disharmony, rebellion and indiscipline were used more often in football columns. Tevez’s feud with manager Roberto Mancini were being played out openly.
City certainly won the Premier League title a year later, but then the poster boy wasn’t Tevez. It was another South American — Sergio Aguero.
Despite their achievements on the field, City had plenty of ‘PR problems.’ With players like Tevez and Mario Balotelli in the squad, Mancini began to be measured by his ability to manage ego than his tactical acumen. Though the judgement was delayed a little by the transfer of Balotelli in Decemeber 2012, it was inevitable. Mancini was fired on May 13, 2013.
With Sheik Mansour now in a mission to brand City as ‘the Barcelona of England’ he knew he had to change his brand ambassador. He also had to let go of his poster-boy-turned-rebel Tevez.
As expected, on June 26, City announced the transfer of Tevez to Italian champions Juventus.