Melbourne City club unveils new training complex

Australian A-League side Melbourne City has unveiled its new 11.7 million US dollar training facilities, funded by Abu Dhabi-based owners the City Football Group (CFG).

Run by Sheikh Mansour, CFG also owns English Premier League champions Manchester City and American MLS side New York City FC, as well as holding a stake in Japanese team Yokohama F. Marinos.

In 2014, they acquired Australian side Melbourne Heart for 9.3 million US dollars and immediately set about rebranding the club. Now, they have committed their long-term future through the unveiling of the Melbourne City Football Academy.

"This is very important, this is the fundament of what they want to do in the long period they've said they'll be involved," Melbourne City manager John van't Schip told News Ltd. on Friday.

"If you build a house, you need good fundaments and this is all in place now. So from here, creating something for the coming years is in place and that's the first important step.

"It's not just word, the actions are there."

Exemplifying the improvement in Melbourne City's redeveloped training facilities are the brand new pitches, which cost 1.5 million US dollars alone.

The DESSO GrassMaster, the machine used to create the pitches, combines natural grass with artificial fibers and has been used internationally by Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain.

In addition, the administrative headquarters have also undergone a complete makeover.

"In the old facility we did everything (meetings) in the dressing room with nothing, or we had to take players to the office," van't Schip added.

"Now, we step to the next room and we start talking. We have screens, we can invite players, show footage. It's a little example, but a very important one.

"We never made issues of those things, the players were professional throughout. But if you're talking about high standards, we were way off.

"Everyone has that feeling when they arrive in the morning that it's kind of a second home."

Although the improvements are a significant step forward, funding into CFG's other clubs, including Manchester City and New York City FC, still far outweighs that of Melbourne City.

In December last year, Manchester City unveiled the upgrades to its Etihad Campus training complex, which cost in excess of 495 million US dollars. Endi