Was thinking about this last night.
In the last decade or so how many of Utd's signings have been made not because we have had an urgent need in the position or the player has immense potential but because the signing will boost Utd's profile in the player's home country/market?
The most ridiculous one was with the signing of Dong Fangzhou in 2004. Arriving at Utd as a 19 year old he made 3 appearances before leaving 4 years later. Clearly just an attempt to sell shirts in China.
Some correlation below:
1999 - Pre-season tour of East Asia and Australia
- We sign Mark Bosnich, Quinton Fortune
2002 - Pre-season friendlies against Boca and Aarhus
- We sign Forlan and Mads Timm.
2003 - Pre-season tour of America
- We sign Tim Howard
2004 - Pre-season tour of America
2005 - Pre-season tour of East Asia
We sign Park Ji Sung and Dong Fangzhou called up to 1st team.
2007 - Pre-season tour of East Asia
2008 - Pre-season tour of Africa
We sign Manucho
2010 - Pre-season tour of Americas
We sign Hernandez
2011 - Pre-season tour of America
2012 - Pre-season friendly in China
We sign Kagawa
Marketing Based Transfer Policy
posted on 28/4/14
comment by Benched (U7195)
posted 2 minutes ago
comment by It Doesn't Mata What My Name Is (U17527)
posted 25 seconds ago
In the same window that Park (£4m) was bought:
Hleb (£6m), Emre (£4m), Luque (£9.5m) and Benayoun (£2.5m) all moved to England. All could be played on the wing and all better players.
..........
Nonsense. Park was actually decent for us and scored some big goals for us in big games.
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Revisionism.
Park was no better than Kleberson or Gibson yet was kept until we bought Kagawa. Nobody looked forward to seeing his name on the team sheet.
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Park had a far better career at United than the other two. He tailed off towards the end but SAF relied on him in big games and he had quite a few excellent performances in big games, CL, where SAF trusted him to do exactly what was asked of him.
A very good servant to United and very much appreciated by United fans !
posted on 28/4/14
RR, you made the point re: a German player in the Chinese league and whether other Europeans would care.
Beckham was English in the American league yet sold jerseys throughout Europe
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You honestly believe he sold jerseys throughout Europe because he was English? Not because he was a global icon? You don't think he sold jerseys in Japan too?
Are you seriously arguing that Beckham is analogous to Dong?
I know exactly what VidicsChin would call you.
posted on 28/4/14
comment by manutd1982 (U6633)
posted 1 minute ago
You're making another massive generalisation regarding the Hispanic support for football. USA was built on immigration, the whole county is filled with nationalities where football is the number 1 sport.
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Have a look here:
http://ptimesports.com/blog/?p=6
and here
http://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2014/03/17/11/44/hispanic-influence-in-us-soccer
and here
http://www.adweek.com/sa-article/can-soccer-ever-conquer-us-137839
posted on 28/4/14
Park had a far better career at United than the other two. He tailed off towards the end but SAF relied on him in big games and he had quite a few excellent performances in big games, CL, where SAF trusted him to do exactly what was asked of him.
A very good servant to United and very much appreciated by United fans !
...........
Precisely
To say he was worse than the likes of luque and emre is just plain wrong. Like I said before he scored some big goals in big games for us. Wasn't the most technically gifted granted but he did a bloody good job for us when needed.
posted on 28/4/14
Beckham is in a league of his own when it comes to merchandising, following a long way back by Messi and Ronaldo.
You cannot compare him to Dong and Bosnich.
posted on 28/4/14
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
You honestly believe he sold jerseys throughout Europe because he was English? Not because he was a global icon? You don't think he sold jerseys in Japan too?
Are you seriously arguing that Beckham is analogous to Dong?
I know exactly what VidicsChin would call you.
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I made no such comparison between Dong and Beckham. You made a hypothetical point about rest of Europe not caring about a German player in the Chinese league if in some alternate reality Asia was the hotbed of football.
posted on 28/4/14
http://noballs.blog.com/2012/06/08/dominating-the-asian-market-fergie%E2%80%99s-cash-cows/
posted on 28/4/14
I made no such comparison between Dong and Beckham.
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So you do agree it would be absurd to suggest that Beckham sold shirts across Europe because he was 'European', not because he was a global star? If so, I don't see the relevance of bringing him up. The case of Beckham doesn't support your theory.
posted on 28/4/14
No but say take for example ROnaldo moving back to Brazil. A lot less coverage than you would have expected in Europe.
It wasn't a theory pointing out that every transfer we make is designed to sell shirts, just that some of the innocuous transfers had more than coincidental timing with our pre-season tours.
posted on 28/4/14
comment by Benched (U7195)
posted 53 minutes ago
comment by It Doesn't Mata What My Name Is (U17527)
posted 25 seconds ago
In the same window that Park (£4m) was bought:
Hleb (£6m), Emre (£4m), Luque (£9.5m) and Benayoun (£2.5m) all moved to England. All could be played on the wing and all better players.
..........
Nonsense. Park was actually decent for us and scored some big goals for us in big games.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Revisionism.
Park was no better than Kleberson or Gibson yet was kept until we bought Kagawa. Nobody looked forward to seeing his name on the team sheet.
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Thta simply isn't true, just ask Pirlo.