City Football Group In Coronavirus Recovery Initiative

The City Football Group (CFG) has launched a new 12-month recovery campaign across its nine clubs in a bid to help local communities recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

The CFG says it has been supporting emergency COVID-19 response funds for the past three months, donating almost £1 million through ‘in-kind support and loaning of facilities’. 

Now, the group has launched Cityzens Giving For Recovery, which aims to deliver at least another £1 million of funding and support in the local areas of its clubs, which are based in the UK, the USA, Australia, Japan, Uruguay, Spain, China, India and Belgium.

“Frontline workers around the world have heroically responded to the immediate threat of COVID-19,” said Ferran Soriano, CEO,  City Football Group. “At CFG, we have been privileged to play our own small part in helping to address that immediate threat.”

“Now is the time for us to look forward, committing to meeting our responsibility to help our communities recover.

“For the first time, we are harnessing the global resources of our nine clubs, our entire network of offices, staff, players and coaches to focus our efforts on recovery. 

“This multi-faceted campaign is going to use our expertise, our facilities, our platform and our voice to help people and our communities to heal and recover. And we will do it together. We are calling on our global community of Cityzens to help us to give and to help as many people as we can to recover.”

In order to lend their support, CFG partners will also get behind the initiative, with Etihad Airways launching the campaign by dedicating their sponsorship of the front of Manchester City’s shirt to “Cityzens Giving for Recovery” in the club’s first game of the Premier League restart – taking place against Arsenal on 17th June.  

CFG says it will also extend its annual Cityzens Giving campaign by matching donations for the funding of nine recovery-linked projects taking place in the local areas near each club. The programme is now in its sixth year.

The Group is also enabling every member of staff across its network to spend a day volunteering, while the clubs will also encourage their fans to participate by donating to the projects, fundraising and submitting ideas to help their communities which CFG may be able to support.