A team named Manchester City Football Club has been in existence since 1894. They moved into this current stadium in 2003, after it had been built for the Commonwealth Games held in Manchester in 2002. It was used as an Athletics stadium in the Common Wealth Games and had a running track, but when Manchester City took over the stadium, the running track was removed.
The club was promoted to the Premier League in the 2002-2003 season and in 2008 were taken over by the United Arab Emirates Vice President, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan through the Abu Dhabi United Group in 2008. He invested heavily in the club and the club's performances started to improve.
When the club won the league in 2012 it was the first time they had won the top tier of the football league since the 1960s, which at that time was League Division One.
The team continued to have much further success and so decided in 2021 to erect the statues of three of their most iconic players in that era to celebrate the tenth anniversary of winning the Premier League title.
The statues are twice life size and were created by sculptor Andy Scott and have been constructed using thousands of welded pieces of galvanised steel. At night-time the statues are illuminated with blue tinted lighting; blue being the team's colour.
Vincent Kompany is depicted wearing his football kit, standing tall with his chest out, and arms outstretched and his fists clenched.
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Vincent Jean Mpoy Kompany; (born 10 April 1986) is a Belgian professional football manager and former player who played as a centre-back and is the current manager of EFL Championship club Burnley. He most notably played for Manchester City for eleven seasons, where he was captain for eight of them and became widely regarded as one of the league’s greatest centre-backs. He also represented the Belgium national team for 15 years, seven as captain.
Kompany began his professional career at Anderlecht; having graduated from their youth system, he was with the club for three seasons as a first team player before moving to Bundesliga club Hamburg in 2006. In the summer of 2008, he completed a transfer to Premier League club Manchester City, where he established himself as an integral part of the squad and was regarded as one of the bargain buys of the revolutionised City era, blossoming into one of the league's best centre-backs. In the 2011–12 season he was awarded the captaincy of City, leading his club to win the Premier League that season, their first league title in 44 years. Kompany was included in the Premier League Team of the Year for two years in a row in 2011 and 2012 as well as being included in the 2014 team, and won the Premier League Player of the Season in 2012. Kompany went on to win 11 more trophies at City and made 360 appearances.
Kompany earned 89 caps for Belgium in a fifteen-year international career, having made his debut in 2004 at the age of 17. He was part of their squad that came fourth at the 2008 Olympics as well as going to the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and 2018, coming a best-ever third at the latter. He served as captain from 2010.
In 2019, when his contract expired after 11 years at City, Kompany returned to Anderlecht as player-manager. A year later, he announced his retirement from professional football and became the first-team manager. In 2022, he was hired by Burnley."
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On the rear of the plinth of the statue is the following plaque.
Vincent Kompany
Captain, leader, warrior, inspiration. Belgian international defender.
From 2008 to 2019 he played 360 games, scored 20 goals and won 12 trophies for his beloved city.