Manchester City Monetises Academy IP with Global ‘CityCoach’ Launch

Manchester City has launched CityCoach, a scalable coaching education platform designed to distribute the club’s elite football methodology to a global audience.

The initiative, announced on yesterday, 15 January 2026, represents a calculated move to package internal academy expertise into a commercial digital product, extending the club’s influence beyond the pitch and into the EURO15 billion global sports training market.

Developed in partnership with the Coachbetter app, a platform already servicing over 10,000 coaches, CityCoach provides a structured, digital learning framework based on the principles of the City Football Academy (CFA).

The program offers grassroots and professional coaches access to ready-to-use training sessions, video-based practices, and tactical insights across multiple age groups, ensuring the club’s “total football” philosophy remains recognisable and consistent worldwide.

Manchester City academy director, Thomas Kruecken, who joined the club from VfB Stuttgart, serves as a lead contributor to the platform’s masterclass series.

“This is about making world-class knowledge accessible for every coach.”

“By sharing the practices that shape our players at every level, we are helping coaches build better teams while maintaining the integrity of the Manchester City methodology,” Kruecken said during the launch. 

The organisation’s decision to adopt a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) model allows for rapid global scaling at a relatively low marginal cost.

Commercially, CityCoach functions as a direct-to-consumer (DTC) revenue stream, monetising the club’s intellectual property (IP) through tiered subscription plans on the Coachbetter app, which range from EURO64.99 to URO159.99 annually.

This strategic pivot into “EdTech” (educational technology) is a core pillar of the club’s 2026 digital roadmap. By embedding its methodology into an app used daily by its international football schools, Manchester City not only secures long-term engagement with educators but also strengthens the brand’s authority as a global leader in player development. As top-tier football clubs face tightening financial regulations, the monetisation of academy IP through such programmes is expected to become a critical secondary revenue source for elite European teams.

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