Mo money mo problems for Melbourne Heart?

This fact is overlooked by pretty much everyone in the football community. Most notably those that jump on the "fold heart" or "relocate Heart" bandwagon every time they lose.

Yes that's correct. And 70% local workforce to run it when completed in terms of the staffing as well.

Another thing too is as Fozz says, City is very multicultural, asian owners, Spanish board, Chilian manager and players from all over the world. I think that's great and promotes the beuatifull game. Another positive is that their investment will create a lot of jobs, I was told when they built the infrustructure for MCFC, that they stipulated there had to be at least a 70% local workforce. Let alone once all is built, it will be good for the city.

Surprisingly, Melbourne Heart (iirc) are the only ALeague team not to ask for a handout from the FFA, also one of the few that actualy made money.

There is definitely some positive culture imo - very few clubs could have gone through what the Heart fans did over the years and increased to 7k members and regular 6-8k crowds. Looking forward, they have; 1) A state of the art football stadium (AAMI Park) which is pretty much perfect. 2) A very decent 7k membership base to build on. 3) A major rival, and 2-3 other smaller ones (AU, SFC, WSW in that order) to build up. Rivals in this country are key to success for football clubs - Glory and Brisbane now have no major rivals, and find it very hard to build support as a result of having no big games. 4) A foothold in a city of 4 million sports-mad people, which given how bad they are is nothing to be sneezed at. Big potential there. TBH I can see why City thought them worth $11m. Makes Brisbane @ $7m seem like a bargain, mind you! Plenty to work on, but I can easily see Heart by 2016 with membership over 10k and pulling 12-14k per game with a bit of hard work and success.

The nervousness about the intentions of new owners is only natural, so I'm neither surprised, nor do I blame anyone for it. If I were to take a guess, I would suspect that they wouldn't force a change in the club colours. It's not their style to annoy the supporters and create friction where it isn't necessary. The potential name change to Melbourne City is a bit different, because it seems most are in favour of that. What they might do is try and convince supporters that a change of colours is a good idea and try and get their support for it, but to railroad it through in the teeth of opposition from the supporters? It just doesn't stack up with what they've done so far at City. I could be wrong of course, it's just a best guess based on how they've been in Manchester.

Slight correction, SFC are massively majority owned by Traktavenko now; Lowy has a far bigger controlling interest in WSW than he has had in 5 years at SFC! As long as the club is being well-run, is permanent and listens to what fans want and act on that who cares? So we've had some bad experiences, but Gallop is clearly far more prudent an administrator than Buckley and perhaps even O'Neill. We've got an FFA Cup coming in next year, Asian Cup as well, World Cup. By May 2015 I'll wager we'll have a much better idea who deserves to be moving up to A-league level out of Wollongong, Canberra, Townesville, Ipswich etc, all the current clubs are the most stable they've ever been, Wanderers will have had their stadium upgrade and new owners. Great times to look forward to in the future, we can't be so worried about being burned again that we give up hope of progression! I think the people of Canberra / Wollongong / Townesville / Ipswich / Geelong etc would take an EPL heavyweight backer for their club over no club at all, too!

Lets be fair. Melbourne Heart have not got any culture yet, they are newcomers. Nothing wrong with Melbourne City as a name There are too too many people criticizing MC before they have had a chance to show us what they are about. I think the purchase is great for the A League and would like to see more overseas clubs doing the same. If most of the youth want to go to Melbourne Heart / City to develop more skills then good luck to them and Australia. Australia has the talent we just need to get them interested in football

See David, I'm hoping that Melbourne Heart/City with the ownership with Man City will instead raise the bar for the other clubs to follow suit. Look for investors, look for bigger sponsorships, look at different ways to attract bigger crowds, look to build at grassroots level. Sometimes it costs to build a product. Some clubs like Central Coast may struggle with this, but as shown their owner is looking at alternatives & they have always been the poor cousin & this has not really affected their success.

I much prefer an EPL club taking over an A-League club, rather then a mining magnate taking up control. IMO, Man City want to increase their junior base. I don't think Man City want to buy expensive players forever in a day. "Will they retain the name, colours and culture of the club?" Culture? The club is less then 5 years old.

" [you] are trying to see the worst in the sale." ~ Patrick Hargreaves that's the impression I get from this article too. There are plenty of potential pitfalls here, but I think there are more than enough potential pay-offs for the game, the club and the league as a whole to warrant taking this "risk" (and I would hope Damien deBohun at the the FFA takes note of the assistance given to WSW/MVC and others over the last 10 years and how beneficial it has been for the game to have strong clubs. It seems to me Heart were given next to no 'extra' assistance and we've seen how that panned out. I'm not a Heart/City fan and I hope this works out for the benefit of the league as a whole.

Yes, I got that - don't worry. It's just that community work was a concern for City fans when the takeover happened too - and it's been superb. Put it this way, the training complex being built at the moment includes local facilities such as a community sports centre and a brand new school as part of it.

Manchester City are one of the best run teams in the world, Melbourne are going to be fine. They never tried to buy Sydney FC, they just asked about them in one conversation over a year ago, to see if they were up for sale. I guess you're not a Melbourne Heart fan and are trying to see the worst in the sale.

For all of the criticism of Heart’s lack of culture or identity, much work has been done to establish relationships with organisations including Street Soccer, Save the Children and Life Saving Victoria among others. If there's one thing I can predict with complete confidence, it's that these will not be at any risk whatsoever. Manchester City have been a community club since their inception, and have always had a major input in such things. "City in the Community" has been a beacon for this sort of thing in a way that frankly shames many clubs. When the club was bought in 2008, the new owners were quick to state that though they didn't fully understand that role, they intended to learn about it and continue it. They've been as good as their word. It's got bigger. And it's important. Don't worry about this one. Really.

We yearn for more 'football' people to be involved with the game, city tick that box, importantly they are not a single benefactor so have ticked that box too. I say it's one of the better investors to date.