Manchester United vs Manchester City: Sky Blues vision sees them closing gap rivals United

In global appeal and earning capacity red half of Manchester dwarfs the blue. But the Etihad club are showing remarkable modernity, typified by yesterday’s visit of the Chinese president, that means it may not always be this way, reports Ian Herbert ahead of tomorrow’s derby

Manchester City’s Elite Development Squad head coach Patrick Vieira, Chinese President Xi Jingping and City Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarack during a visit to the City Football Academy in Manchester (PA)

Perhaps it is only natural to imagine that the football bubble’s tribal loyalties must apply to Xi Jinping and that Manchester United was the Chinese president’s preferred choice before his itinerary planners dragged him off, kicking and screaming, to the Etihad Stadium, where his tour of Britain drew towards a close yesterday.

Natural, but wrong. Xi certainly does care for football. Asked about his personal ambitions for China four years ago he replied: “To qualify for the World Cup, to host the World Cup and to win the World Cup.” But out there in the real world, geo-politics is slightly more important than a 90-minute game. The British government wanted the Chinese president to see the club which has helped revitalise a large slice of post-industrial Manchester under Abu Dhabi ownership, rather than the one which has more Premier League titles to its name. The message to Xi yesterday was: “Abu Dhabi has helped us do this. We would like your companies’ millions to help us do the same in other areas.”

The choice of City over United was also a way of demonstrating to the Chinese that Britain is open to business with countries which are built on state-led capitalism. “They’re saying: ‘We’ve got a relationship with Abu Dhabi. We can have one with you’,” says Dr Christopher Davidson of Durham University’s School of Government and International Affairs. “In many ways, Abu Dhabi and China have a lot in common.”

And then there was the very significant football factor: City’s Football Academy, unarguably Britain’s most ambitious, which provided a graphic illustration to Xi of what his quest to develop young players could actually look like. Though two United representatives, Gary Neville and Denis Law, were invited along, the Etihad visit was nothing less than a coup for City – demonstrating as the two Manchester clubs head into a derby weekend that the blue side of town is where the greater vision and modernity lies.

There can be no disguising which is the bigger force. Both in terms of global appeal and earning capacity, United dwarf City. The panoply of graphics in the latest peerless piece of analysis by the financial specialist Swiss Ramble reveals that. The key earnings metric places United revenue at £120m, with projections of an astonishing £165-175m for 2015/16 following their return to the Champions League and new Adidas kit deal. But City – with £75m earnings on the same metric – have been extremely light on their feet, making up some of United’s vast global brand superiority through a commercial operation which is now sees them bring in a third more than Arsenal’s £64m, with Liverpool (£53m), Chelsea (£51m) and Tottenham (£39m) back down the line on their 2013/14 figures.

A substantial part of the Abu Dhabi strategy has been to plant City flags in other continents. Several of the world’s most powerful clubs have told this newspaper in the past 12 months that this is a mistake, distracting from the focus on the core club. But it has brought wealthy sponsors who would otherwise not have been interested in City. Nissan did not want a one-country deal but have signed up to all three in City’s group – Manchester, New York, Melbourne – as has the blue chip IT company SAP.

In many ways,  Abu Dhabi and China have a  lot in common

&#13; <p> Dr Christopher Davidson, Durham University School of Government and International Affairs</p>&#13;

United, whose substantially bigger sponsorship sales operation keeps the millions rolling in, will not be worried by any of that. But the consensus within football that City’s academy operation substantially outstrips that of the side they face at Old Trafford tomorrow should concern United executive vice-chairman, Ed Woodward, and his lieutenants. It is not just the anecdotal evidence in Manchester that City – whose offer to young players’ parents includes a guaranteed secondary education at the £13,000-per-year St Bede’s College, even if the boy is released midway through – are a better proposition. Those familiar with the academy scene also point to City being far more active than United in finding the best prospective talents.

“They are investing more in getting the kids in,” says one former Premier League academy source, who has been in competition with both Manchester clubs. “With United, there is this sense that they will just sign the best players because they are United. I think they have been caught. City have properly pushed on. There was a time when players just wanted to come to clubs like Manchester United and Liverpool. These days you have to sell the place.”

Sceptics will point to City’s struggles to develop an established first team player out of the academy which Xi visited yesterday. United, with their vast earning potential, will be better placed for the foreseeable future to buy the best 18-year-olds if they can’t develop their own. One academy source speaks of his club’s own interest in Andreas Pereira, United’s 19-year-old Belgium-born Brazilian midfielder. “We thought he was good. Very, very good. But United came in with their money and that was it,” he says.

It was a different strategy when Sir Alex Ferguson was rebuilding the club. His decision to bring in Brian Kidd to attract the best young talent was legendary, though there is an acute sense of a club needing to modernise and innovate, now that he and his immense powers of motivation have gone. The geography of the two clubs’ academy facilities feels like a metaphor. City’s is open, accessible and built in plain view. United’s is shrouded in secrecy, accessible down a narrow unadopted lane in Carrington. United decided to split the job of academy head into specific coaching and administration roles, when Brian McClair left in February to become the Scottish FA’s performance director. But that operation is still without a leader, with Nicky Butt running it on an informal basis.

United’s income means that paying big to buy in the best is sustainable. The Old Trafford wage to turnover ratio is still a low 51 per cent, Swiss Ramble shows. But City’s drop to 55 per cent, from a peak of 114 per cent in 2011, makes them one of the lowest in the Premier League. (Arsenal’s equivalent ratio is 58 per cent.) Evidence of how their financial model has changed came when they recorded a £10m profit last week – the first in the Abu Dhabi era.

City have not been averse to hiring their competitors’ executives. They have recruited heavily from the Liverpool academy – part of a curious interchange of personnel which has seen ex-City scouting staff Dave Fallows and Barry Hunter move to the Merseyside club. “Global technical director” Rodolfo Borrell, was one of those headhunted from Liverpool, where it is hard to recall any academy scholar from the past five years who has not enthused about his technical intelligence and management style. Raheem Sterling was a huge enthusiast.

Borrell went back to Liverpool for Steve Torpey to run the 6-11 age range, as well as coach Darren Hughes, and even bought the Liverpool academy kitman, who he thought would enhance the environment. At one stage, Liverpool sought a meeting with City to express concern about the exodus.

Such are the developments that the Abu Dhabis have funded and days like yesterday provided the kind of choreographed pay-off they have been looking for. There are big reasons for them to want to cultivate China. “There is an inter-dependency between the two,” says Dr Davidson. “China is one of Abu Dhabi’s biggest oil customers and as western demand goes down, Chinese demand will become greater.”

There was comfort for United in Chinese social media’s reaction to the Etihad visit. A “breaking news” post on Sina Weibo microblogging site stating “Xi Jinping dreamed of seeing Man U” was one of the most shared. City will have observed Prime Minister David Cameron getting in on Sergio Aguero’s selfie with Xi, waved both premiers off and felt satisfaction that those who matter have seen the bigger picture.