Manchester City are believed to be in advanced talks with Indian Super League side Mumbai City over the possibility of adding the club to their growing portfolio of football team investments.
Over the past few years, the City Football Group (CFG) have accumulated stakes and shares in a number of clubs across the world, such as New York City FC, Melbourne City FC, and Yokohama F. Marinos. The purpose of City's affiliation with the clubs is to develop academy networking, and to build the clubs brand across the globe.
According to Goal, City officials were in Mumbai to watch the club's first game of the ISL season against Jamshedpur, and are moving closer to investing in the club, which is owned by Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor and film producer Bimal Parekh. Man City's affiliations have proved fruitful before, with the club signing Aaron Mooy from Melbourne City FC back in 2017.
Discussing a potential deal, CFG CEO Ferran Soriano said: "With all these developments we have to be patient. We have some interest in some markets and countries where there is a genuine football passion and opportunities, like China, but also India. So there might be other opportunities in Asia.
"We've been looking at India for nearly two years now. I'd say this year we'll end up doing an investment in India. As we see it now, there is a natural pace of growth that we will follow that takes us to more than seven teams, but not 100 teams I cannot see 10 years ahead but the group might have two or three teams more.
"Is this going to change in five years and we're going to have more? Maybe, I don't know that. But to complete the vision that we had six years ago, I think we will have maybe two or three clubs more."
