Melbourne City and the City Football Group model: Why the rise of multi-club ownership is sparking a debate over identity and ambition in the A-League

- 3:41pm When the A-League launched in 2005, Matthew Galea tried to embrace Melbourne Victory. But for whatever reason, it never really felt right to him.

It wasn't until five years later, when rivals Melbourne Heart were introduced to the competition, that he found a team that did. Melbourne Heart was specifically conceived for people like him, as if they were presenting a slightly more cerebral, European-flavoured alternative to Victory, whose early identity was pinned to star players such as Archie Thompson and Kevin Muscat.

John van 't Schip was Melbourne Heart's inaugural coach. He went to games with mates, joined pre-match marches to AAMI Park and found something of a community within the Heart's fledgling fanbase.

On January 23, 2014, it was announced that Heart had been purchased by the City Football Group, becoming the third club in CFG's sprawling international multi-club network, alongside Manchester City and New York City FC. Nobody in the game had any inkling this was coming.

Galea remembers the day well; he was working as a journalist for the Shepparton News and looked at one of his colleagues, who was also a Heart supporter, with confusion. Same coach, new colours: John van 't Schip with Patrick Kisnorbo (left) and David Williams in Melbourne City's relaunched jerseys in 2014.

Eddie Jim At first, even as a long-time Manchester United fan, he thought he could live with it, if it meant stable ownership for the club he had grown to love. Then, a few months later, the club's name was changed to Melbourne City, and their colours from red and white to Manchester City's light blue - the same shade he had spent many years hating.

That severed the connection for Galea. "Once the colours changed, I'm like, 'Well, this isn't what I started supporting,'" he said.

Foreign ownership is transforming the A-League. Michael Howard "The fact that it's now a club that I loathe just made it that little bit easier, I guess - but they could have changed it to yellow and given it another name, and I would have felt the same way.

City became a more stable club, and much more successful on the field. They had not won anything as Heart, but as Melbourne City, with CFG's resources and worldwide connections behind them, they swiftly became an A-League powerhouse, with facilities and systems envied by the rest of the competition."