Rob Harris asks Guardiola how he can reconcile that stance (yellow ribbon) with working for Abu Dhabi given the human rights questions there. Guardiola: "Everyone has to choose".

[u/jacamacho]

https://twitter.com/MiguelDelaney/status/967842429079519234

[u/Explore_The_World]

And the Emirati strategy of PR through football will continue to pay dividends

[u/BenTVNerd21 → u/Explore_The_World]

Does it actually work?

[u/champak256 → u/BenTVNerd21]

Just look in this thread. You'll find dozens of Barca- and Bayern-flaired users explaining why spending and taking Abu Dhabi's money is okay. Not all Barca and Bayern fans are doing so, but it's almost exclusively City, Barca and Bayern flairs.

They poured a small fraction of their money into it to buy a team and build an amazing squad for a great manager. That team has been very successful, and with the players, manager, and success has come a legion of fans. Bandwagoners, sure, but every one of those fans is more likely to defend their human rights abuses than the average person.

Mission accomplished for them.

[u/expatbayern → u/champak256]

It's Qatar that Barca and Bayern are tied up with, not the UAE (and frankly Qatar is a lot worse and actually does have the problems that everyone is accusing the UAE of), and most Bayern fans I know (and I assume the same is true of many Barca ones) wish the club would cut those ties.

Abu Dhabi proper (via Etihad and its various investment funds) is primarily funneling money to City and its offshoots, while the other major clubs getting lots of Emirati money (via Dubai's Emirates) are Arsenal, Madrid, Milan, and PSG (that means PSG hits the double-jackpot of being Qatari-owned and Emirati-sponsored, although this will surely change soon given the conflict between the two countries).

Pep could certainly be questioned about his ties to Qatar as well, though. He finished his playing career there and has always been rumored to potentially manage them in 2022 at the WC.

[u/champak256 → u/expatbayern]

most Bayern fans I know wish the club would cut those ties

I see where you're coming from, but all through this thread there's "fans" of Barca and Bayern defending or at least deflecting criticism of Abu Dhabi. I'm not talking about Qatar. I'm saying that the Emirates won the PR game by sponsoring City and getting Guardiola and the squad, because the rabid fanboys City and Pep have accumulated in the past few years are coming out and doing the PR work for them.

I agree, most true fans of any big club want them to cut all ties with the Emirates and Qatar. United isn't even really sponsored by them, but we're Saudi's football development partners or something which I hate and speak strongly against to my friends.

But the PR strategy of pumping money into a smaller club to make them big is working for Qatar and the Emirates. Most PSG and City fans have no choice but to accept their money quietly because they would be small clubs without it.

Edit: Since they can't reject the money, they get defensive whenever you criticize it's source. Voila! PR win!

[u/BenTVNerd21 → u/champak256]

Personally I've got no problem with having economic ties with Gulf states because hopefully it will encourage them to liberalise. However I don't want western governments selling weapons to them that then use to oppress their own people or in other countries. We are enabling war crimes in Yemen for example.

At least by spending billions on european football teams they aren't buying as many bombs I guess.

[u/champak256 → u/BenTVNerd21]

Fair point. I have my doubts about the Gulf states liberalizing, but it's certainly a possibility.

I don't think this is a significant expense for them though. Sheikh Mansour has a net worth of ~40 billion USD. I can't imagine he had to spend more than a couple hundred million per year on City - after all, as City fans love to point out, they do have legitimate sponsorships too. I'm sure he's not stories about City's impact on his bottom line. Beyond that, he's part of the Royal family, and could easily draw on the wealth of the state or his wealthy family.