Soccerwire Q&A: Manchester City’s Gary Hopkins on the City Soccer initiative

\r\n\r\nSW: City Soccer seems like a useful vehicle for the Man City brand, but equally so for the United Arab Emirates.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>\r\n\r\nGH:\u00a0It’s one of those fortunate partnerships. They do tons of stuff in communities around America, and I think they see themselves as a solid, reliable, important partner with the US. And the ambassador happens to be a huge soccer fan. He wants his drive to be something he loves and something he’s passionate about. You’ll see when we do the opening, he’ll play, he’ll be here for an hour kicking the ball around with the kids.\u00a0So he’s a true soccer man, it’s not just a check.\r\n\r\nThere is a true passion behind this \u2013 and not just him, his whole staff are big soccer guys \u2013 they’re big Man City fans, obviously \u2013 so for them as an embassy, they love the stuff they do in soccer. So again, we’re very fortunate. They see what’s happening here and they say, ‘How can we help in the inner city?’ Soccer is a fantastic thing to do in the cities. City are big on doing community work, it’s an important part of who we are \u2013 [whether the team is] good or bad, even if we’re down in the third division, we’ve always done this.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSW: How does Man City view the U.S. in general? Clearly it’s a lucrative market given that the team visits regularly [and City recently announced another summer tour, starting with a friendly against Chelsea FC in St. Louis on May 23 which sold out in 20 minutes last week].<\/strong><\/em>\r\n\r\nGH: And there’s a strong sense that we’ll be back again and again. Our players love coming to the States, the club loves coming to the States. Our players had the most fabulous tour in 2011 \u2013 [manager Roberto] Mancini claims it’s the best tour he’s ever had, as a player or a coach. Our players love coming to America, so we’ll be back. We go to Asia, obviously, because it’s a big market for us and there’s a lot of revenue there for us. But as a club, the players love coming to the States.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSW: Why do you suppose that is the case?<\/strong><\/em>\r\n\r\nGH: It’s great people, great places, great transportation, great hotels, great facilities, great training. The food’s easy for them, the language is easy for them. They can be a bit more anonymous, they can go out in America and not be hounded by the press, not be chased down the street like they are in Italy or Spain, or England to a degree.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThey just feel comfortable here, and they know the sport’s changed here. Most of our players now realize that there’s serious soccer taking place in the States. They know it’s still got a ways to go with MLS, but they know there’s something big happening here. So all of our team love coming to the States.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSW: Do you expect to add any friendlies with MLS teams to this summer’s visit?<\/em><\/strong>\r\n\r\n GH: No.\u00a0We’re big fans of MLS and we see where that is going, which is great, but this trip just happened [because] Chelsea were here, so we thought we’d play them. We play them in the semifinal of the [FA] Cup anyway, so after we’ve beaten them in that, they’ll try to get revenge in the States.<\/span>“},”name”:”acf\/wysiwyg”,”mode”:”edit”} /–>