The Manchester City group reaches an agreement on the acquisition of NAC Breda

NAC Breda is set to be taken over by City Football Group, the Kitchen Champion division club announced on Wednesday. NAC shareholders reached an agreement with the consortium this week, subject to the approval of the supervisory board, the NOAD foundation, the municipality of Breda and the KNVB.

In addition to City Football Group, another party was also interested in taking over NAC. “We tested these parties on the basis of the criteria set by the Supervisory Board, the NOAD foundation and the KNVB”, specifies NAC on its website. “This includes criteria such as a healthy balance between local involvement and commercial distance, football context, football vision and football plan, short and long-term financial capacity, maintaining the privileged action, the statutes and the charter of culture, leadership, security in the field of continuity and therefore continuity, the origin of financial resources, the UBO of the actors and their intentions.

Representatives of the City Football Group traveled to Breda this week to confirm their interest. The wealthy group from Abu Dhabi, led by Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, currently has clubs in nine countries: Australia, Belgium, China, England, France, India, Japan, Spain, Uruguay and the United States. The Netherlands could thus become the tenth country where the City Football Group becomes active. NAC hope to return to the Eredivisie soon, but are only ninth in the second tier.

NAC and Manchester City signed a partnership agreement in April 2016. For five seasons, the Breda club was allowed to have four to six players, brought in from Manchester on loan. The goal was to let the players mature in the Netherlands. After a few years, the NAC became unhappy with the English players on offer and Manchester City was done with the Breda policy. Under the leadership of director Mattijs Manders, the ties were then tightened and strengthened.