The net spending of each club gives insights into their take on this year’s FFP

96 Replies to “The net spending of each club gives insights into their take on this year’s FFP”

1. Good morning Gooners!!! Thanks for this insight, very welcome info and analysis.
   One question; when does EPL-FFP kick off?

2. First time poster, but read the blog a lot.
   I think this post might be premature in its suppositions.
   Net spend doesn’t equal net loss as I’m sure you know.
   The extra spending of teams like Hull and west ham seem more or less directly in line with increases in television revenues.

3. City’s net spend is actually lower than that – you’ve included the Fernando transfer twice in your calculations! So you might want to edit that. Also, we have loaned Negredo to Valencia and they have an obligation to buy him at the end of the loan period for something in the region of £22 million. That would have probably gone through as a permanent transfer this summer rather than next if it wasn’t for the fact that Peter Lim’s takeover of Valencia hasn’t been completed yet.

   So, Negredo aside, an even lower net spend than stated on here. It could be reasonably argued that FFP has reigned City in but we already had arguably the most complete squad in the Premier League along with Chelsea so there wasn’t any need to spunk the kind of figures on players that we have in past transfer windows or United have this time round – it’s well documented that we were only ever looking to strengthen in certain areas, primarily centre-back so it’s no surprise that the most money we spent on one player in this window was in that position. Either way, as much as I’ve disagreed on this page about FFP in it’s current format (and it’s pointless going over old ground), now the regs are in place I want the club to comply with them. I’ve little doubt that, going forward, there won’t be a problem with us complying while remaining competitive at the top end of the league.

   As for West Ham’s spending, let’s not forget that the Premier League FFP rules are far more lenient in terms of allowable losses (£105 million over 3 years) than UEFA’s FFP regs so I don’t think one window of high net spend will necessarily land them in trouble.

4. apo Armani,

   Premier League FFP started last season (2013-14) so the first monitoring period will be seasons 2013-14, 2014-15, and 2015-16.

5. Doesn’t your table show Southampton as a Profit of £31m ? Therefore they should be in 20th on the table .

6. Tony – good article.

   A couple of points:

   – Some sites have Arsenal’s net spend as higher (seen £70mm in some places) but suspect this doesn’t include the Vela money which your’s does.

   – I think you need to check your Southampton numbers/analysis. Inconsistent.

   – Won’t Man Utd be caught by the PL FFP provision against increasing wages by more than £5mm per year? Or is there a provision that an increase in commercial revenue can offset? Can’t remember the detail.

   – Tottenham are in the same boat as Chelsea in terms of continually having to pay out compensation to sacked coaches/clubs from whom they recruit their successors. This is a drain on resources. They would also argue that some of their not so magnificent seven from last summer should now be coming good given the year of adaptation?

   More broadly, I agree that Liverpool are in a crazy place while MC’s problems won’t go away. I suspect also that Everton may have overpaid for Lukaku while their defence is starting to creak.

   PSG are off the scale nuts. Will be interesting to see how UEFA deal with them given the Platini connection.

7. Now seen M18CTID posts which implies that maybe Man City are making at least half-hearted attempts to comply?

8. M18CTID

   Thanks for the info

9. City’s transfer spending was always going to decline as the squad has been built.

   When City were taken over, City were at best a mid-table squad so we had to spend massively to catch up with the other teams, but at no time was there any risk to the fabric of the football club because there was no debt. Financial Fair Play is about stopping clubs like City challenging the elite clubs.

   As mentioned you have not take into account Negredo’s sale which is something like £25m

   You should also note that City are now profitable, so City will be spending big on top players again in the future.

10. It all means very little in the scheme of things. Let’s take Chelsea as an example. Hands up who REALLY believes that PSG agreed to pay £50m for David Luiz ??? It’s more likely that, to scam Uefa, the oilmen who run the clubs in question got together and exchanged a few assets / contracts outside of football as part of the REAL deal, so football sees a £50m transfer but £30-£40m is paid back via other routes.

    With so much power and money involved FFP simply can not be enforced.

11. This details the net transfer spend. Don’t forget all PL clubs benefit from the new TV deal. Liverpool additionally benefit from Champions League money. They’ll be fine.

12. Pete,

    If you want to call it half-hearted that’s your opinion but I’m a little confused as to how you arrived at that conclusion. Just to recap, one of the sanctions imposed on City by UEFA back in May (when, according to Mr Attwood, we were ignoring all UEFA’s phone calls lol) was a spending cap of £49 million net. Even with Tony’s calculations above (which include the Fernando signing twice!) our net spend is £32 million which is £17 million below UEFA’s cap. I’m not sure how that can be construed as half-hearted, especially as the original article clearly makes the point that FFP has had the desired effect of reigning in City’s (and Chelsea’s) spending.

13. M18CTID/Naz.

    Fine – I don’t look at City’s numbers in any detail at all.

    So you have achieved Step 1 which is to bring your transfer net spend under the cap.

    But I still can’t see how City can afford their wage bill as their revenues will not be higher than comparable top end clubs (i.e. top 5 other than MU), sponsorship deals with possibly connected parties notwithstanding? It is not just achieving Step 1 – but meeting all the FFP requirements as generally applicable.

    I realise I have reopened a can of worms here!

14. Naz

    How are City profitable? From that bogus naming rights deal? There’s no other way they operate at a profit, given the wage bill.

15. Tony/Walter
    I think I’ve discovered a security issue with this site.
    I don’t want to say too much now in case I’m wrong, but if you could give me a contact email I will forward details of a commenter who appears to have hacked my gmail account from your blog.

16. Tony/Walter
    I’d also like to make the point that if he can do it to me he may have already done it to others.
    My gmail account is open for the whole world to see from a link on this blog.

17. @oldgooner

    If this is the case – must be rectified ASAP!!

18. apo Armani
    Yes, and if I don’t hear from the blogger this morning it’s going to be reported to the police. Hacking an email account is a crime.

19. Can anyone fill me in on Man City’s accounting scam?

    Excellent article, by the way, very interesting comments too.

20. Oldgroover – Tony’s email is on the front page of the site (or obtainable from there).

21. Swissguns – that is a valid point, but if the club was struggling to make ends meet anyway, and gets extra money from TV it has the choice of spending all of it on players, or using some of it to patch up the losses it has been making.

    There is also the point that it looks to me as if some clubs are spending their extra income on transfers but not accounting for wages, which will actually take them further into debt.

22. I sympathise with you oldgroover. Untold is constantly under attack.

    Anyway, who will take the government to court for hacking? (sorry to bring this up, old hobby horse)

23. Pete
    Tony’s front page gives a link which opens my old mac mail account but t with no email address in the address section.
    Does anyone know his email address?
    I’ve already had to delete a huge amount of sensitive info including financial stuff.

24. Some months ago I pointed out that rich owners in the main have people working for and with them that will turn FFP on its head and for those that thought things were really going to change they would be disappointed. Looking at one set of net transfer spends means little especially when the overall spend at £835 million is massively up on last years.

    The first two year monitoring period was always going to be a minor challenge for PL clubs but once the huge uplift in terms of broadcasting fees kicked in then the whole landscape changed. I include Man City in that for love them or hate them they clearly were caught out by UEFAs shifting interpretation of its own rules

    Chelsea had never planned in the first period to pass FFP by a huge margin. Why would they?

    I do doubt that Chelsea really expected to receive about £130 million for players like Mata, Luiz, De Bryne & Lukaku what they did expect is to get about £30-£40 million in loan fees for the likes of Atsu, Moses, Bertrand, T Hazard, Kalas, etc etc.

    So what has happened in just two transfer windows due to Man Uts, Evertons & PSGs generoisty Chelsea have transformed the squad.

    Of the 24 players that appeared in the 2013/14 squad photograph taken on 2 September 2013 only 12 remain at the club. Chelsea net transfer spend over these two windows is zero & with huge wage earners like Essien, Cole , Lampard and Torres off the wage bill my guess is that the suits at Chelsea couldn’t believe their luck.

    What FFP has done is forced clubs to be smarter. For instance the likes of Torres will now go on loan to see out their contract spreading the cost as opposed to making a one of accounting adjustment. Or how about Man City’s approach to grant contract extensions and spread further the players transfer fees.

25. errr…really.

    This seems interesting enough BUT all based on your supposition that clubs can spend only what they make in transfers?? Thats absolute rubbish- they can spend revenues made by the club, ie TV money, commercial rights deals etc etc.

26. Pete

    I can’t find the email address there. Does anyone have it?

27. Iain – What Tony has done is take the net transfer spend in one window, which is obviously only a subset of the overall financial picture, and then extrapolated. That is why his conclusions are broad and tentative rather than very specific.

    It would take a lot of time to go in and forensically explore every club’s financial position – although it would be interesting to see if that analysis was ever carried out.

28. When was the last time Arsenal outspent(net) Chelsea? and/or Man City?

    In fact when was the last time either of Hull city, West ham or Everton got even close to outspending the oilers in any transfer window?

    Whilst It’s obvious that both Man City and Chelsea remain the clubs to beat in the EPL this season, it’s also obvious that their status at the helm of English football will come under threat if these type transfer figures are to be sustained in the future.

29. Pete,

    No worries mate – I wasn’t being facetious and to be fair I don’t expect any opposition supporter to know City’s business inside out. With regards to the “can of worms” (!) you refer to, the club are in the process of bringing the wage bill down significantly. Many of our key players have been signed up to new long-term contracts that are more bonus related with lower basic wages. I would imagine that the same applies to the new signings as well. Then of course we have moved on some players that don’t figure in the manager’s first-team plans so those wages are off our books. Another benefit of signing up key players to long-term contracts is that their transfer fees are amortised over a longer period of time which leads to a reduction in player amortisation (as alluded to by Mike T above) on the annual accounts.

    Also, it’s worth noting that the new £200 million training academy is due to open in November and the stadium expansion (eventually increasing to a capacity of 62,000) is now underway, both of which should lead to an increase in revenues further down the line and both of which are exempt from FFP calculations of course.

30. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-04/man-city-said-to-sell-soccer-expertise-to-boost-income.html

31. Hilarious article – only to be expected from fans of a club that love the idea of FFP as it locks out all future competition to teams that have their snouts in the trough of Champions League cash. Too late to stop City of course, but it does amuse me.

    I should point out that City actually only failed FFP because UEFA changed the spreadsheet and guidance notes for completion of said document AFTER submittal of the 2011/12 accounts. That pushed City down about £3m on allowable revenue for FFP for that season in the end it left City about £1.5m short of being able to include the pre June 2010 contract wage exclusion clause to pass FFP.

    As a result of this UEFA scam City stood firm and rejected the initial ludicrous fine And other penalties. In the end UEFA backed down and went for a penalty that will only amount to £10m fine in the end and a transfer Kitty that was higher than City were planning to spend.
    City took the £10m fine as it would be far less than any legal bills spent fighting the decision and it also meant that City were now a defacto member of the UEFA cartel.A big shame that because every club should have the chance of getting an owner who will invest and get their club to the top. Just like every member of the cartel once did.

32. Tasos,

    I’m not sure the spending of Hull, West Ham, and Everton is a direct result of FFP. Remember that last season the new TV deal saw clubs earn in the region of £20m-£30m extra compared to the old deal. Even the bottom club earned around £60 million which is more than United earned for winning the PL the season before. As such, many clubs will have more money to spend on players and some of them haven’t been afraid to splash out.

33. Arsenal Blogger acting like his club is bigger than Cities revenue wise when fact is they are not this renders his argument almost laughable when he get his figures wrong and even using those figures we spend less than you net. It becomes even sillier when you consider we are debt free and have the richest owners with the biggest vision cannot wait for the campus developments

34. O and all are deals have been considered legit so far as we know by UEFA so no scam has taken place

35. Etihad, Nike, Etisalat, TCA Abu Dhabie, Aabar, Nissan, Hays, LG, Forex.com, Heineken, EA Sports, Paddy power, Viagogo, ION, Jaguar Energy Drinks, 2stic, T.M. Lewin, Qnet are all sponsors listen on the MCFC website at the is very moment I have also seen sposorship adverts for Fosters, vitality, and 188 bet, And we now have regional deals in place with everything from battery makers to beer makers

36. I’ve passed all info on the hacking of my gmail account from this blog onto Action Fraud.
    Thanks so much for your assistance in this matter Tony Attwood you turd.

37. There is one side of the argument that never comes up when clubs like Barca, Chelsea, and Man City are discussed. WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM ??? Is it right that people that exploits their own people sells out their home country’s natural ressources, use the money to play Football Manager with real money and leave their country in extreme poverty ??? This is why i really hate people like Abramowich and all the Sheik’s, and this is one of the reasons that there are instability in many parts of the world right now. Where is the moral in football ?

38. What many of you are forgetting or choosing to ignore is that this time next year city will be in profit.

    The outcome of this is that the rest of the premier league will be getting a very very vigorous bumming once they open their wallets again.

    The Uefa drawbridge was frantically pulled up but city just managed to scrape into the castle before it slammed shut.

    Now they’re in, the castle is going to get turned over like a posh house in Alderley Edge that left its doors open whilst the owners were on holiday.

39. Edda,

    That might well be a fair question to ask but with all due respect I don’t think an Arsenal fan should be asking it when you consider who your main sponsor is:

    “Emirates (Arabic: طَيَران الإمارات‎ DMG: Ṭayarān Al-Imārāt) is an airline based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The airline is a subsidiary of The Emirates Group, which is wholly owned by the government of Dubai’s Investment Corporation of Dubai”

40. M18CTID,

    Fair point, but it the scale of the whole thing that is different, Arsenal FC is runned like a company and get a “fair” marked value deal with Emirates. If Arsenal were owned by them and they spent billions of pounds the club just for fun I would stop following football. I must say I dont support the behavior of big companies like Adidas either when it comes to child labour. But it is still abit less “troubling” than money coming from countries that starts civil wars in neighbouring countries and Sheik’s that still supports slavery. But maybe I am abit naive coming from Norway where we use our oil riches for free healtcare and free education for all…

41. 90 percent of City’s commercial revenue, which is higher than that of Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, comes from partners not named Etihad (which I believe UEFA had no problem with and which is a deal, by 2014 standards and in view of what the competition are getting, is grossly undervalued anyway). Most of the new sponsors seem to be European, American and Asian. Someone has already posted a list of new partners/sponsors, and that doesn’t include the dozens of smaller tie-ups such as est. Cola in Thailand. People need to get over the fact it’s not 2008, City are making big revenue from all over the shop, thanks to a hierarchy famous for maximizing revenues. City is a profitable club for whom FFP has been a brief nuisance. It’s clubs who will dare to dream in future that these disgraceful, unlawful, protectionist rules will hurt most. FYI: Rangers/Portsmouth/Leeds/City under Shinawatra (in danger of going out of business) would have passed FFP. What does that say?

42. M18CTID – Does it not bother you that your club has effectively created a law change?

43. Edda @ 1:27 P.M. You are so correct. Most businesses worldwide can spend what they make as most people do also. I can’t buy my own private jet because I don’t make enough money. Here in the States among our major sports leagues it would be impossible for a scumbag oil exploiter owner to come in and do what they are doing in Europe. There are rules over here that prevent that from taking place. Most television revenues are split evenly, There are salary caps you can’t go above, And teams spend what they make from sponsorships and game-day revenues. Only over there can slimy scumbag exploiters buy a mid-table team with no history and with just a few trophies in their cabinet, Toss in money that they didn’t work and sweat for and suddenly those nothing clubs are world beaters. Fucking unbelievable. I am lucky, I have a pretty nice co-op apartment, A nice car, Go on vacations, Have a little cash in the bank. I also fucking worked for it. Each and every dollar I have or spent I earned by the sweat from my brow. Nobody gave me shit. I also didn’t steal anything. What I have is because I earned it. As opposed to some people I know that did it the easy way like selling drugs or inheriting their money. My pontifications might bring responses from supporters of those scumbag oil clubs, I don’t give a fuck. Deep down inside, I know and they know that what I am saying is true. They are gonna come up with some bullshit about how their clubs didn’t break any rules and whatnot, Blah Blah Blah. Most of the world can see that it is morally wrong.

44. Edda,

    I think you kind of missed my point – regardless of the varying degrees and fair value, the fact is that Arsenal receives millions of pounds every year from a sponsor directly related to the government of Dubai makes it 2 sides of the same coin. If you believe Sheikh Mansour should be spending his personal fortune on his own people then surely you believe that the Emirates sponsorship money should be spent in the same way rather than on Arsenal FC? You can’t have it both ways mate.

45. Will,

    Interesting question that, not least because many Arsenal fans on this very board have claimed in the past that FFP hasn’t been brought in to stop City and that it’s for the good of the game overall.

46. Bill,

    Crikey, did you get out of bed the wrong side this morning lol?? I thought we were good mates after our collective slating of United’s transfer policy the other day – now I’m all hurt and upset at what you’ve said. Quality rant though 😉

47. Tony, is there any chance you can explain what the comment below about Everton is all about, particularly the last bit? Is this yet more wild guesswork on your behalf? Truth be told, you stopped getting under my skin a long time ago with your wholly inaccurate statements about City (in fact I now find them rather amusing but there are some good posters on here that I like engaging with which is why I keep coming back) but it seems you come out with unsubstantiated rubbish about plenty of other clubs too.

    “Everton’s strategy is clear: stabalise in fifth, and with local authority funding get a new stadium, and then sell the club to the Middle East.”

48. There’s some wild speculation on here about MCFC’s wage bill (not the highest in sport any longer) – It’s massively down from last season, Aguero/Dzeko/Silva/Nasri/Kompany all signed new 5 year deals on reduced wages (bonus related pay now).

49. Hello Tony
    It may well be as you say, it will be interesting to see if clubs are in fact better off financially with the new TV money or not. What’s clear is the stakes have never been higher, so clubs may indeed be taking more risks.
    We’ll see at the end of this season, thus my opinion that it might be premature at this point to assume that some clubs are spending beyond their means.
    Thanks for the reply by the way!

50. Informer – I’ll certainly look at the next round of FFP with interest. If you are right then Man C have indeed been successful at blowing a hole right through the idea and it will undoubtedly just die. Not sure if Uefa will try again, but if not it will be the biggest defeat in the history of Uefa.

51. It is hard for me to scream at Man City and Chelsea fairly for having rich owners when Arsenal,in the grand scheme of things is also rich. I get it that when these rich owners bought their clubs they put in loads of their own money to make up the talent gap on the field. In short order they have become top teams and are building their commercial sides so that they can be/become profitable. I get that.
    Things that bother me, and I suspect some others, are:

    the impression that in the past teams have bought up players simply to keep them out of the hands of their competitors (i.e. Arsenal and the slightly less rich),
    the impression some, though not all, of their deals are rather opaque (i.e. PSG playing fifty million quid for David Luis),
    the idea that a nation-state owns one of our competitors, and
    the feeling that the English Premier league because of the lack of limits on spending will go the way of other European leagues and become a 2 or 3 horse race.

52. M18CD1D – Bill Kenwright, the main man at Everton, has stated many times, the club is for sale, to the right person.

    ManCity, last available accounts detailed the transfer fees in and out, since 2008-2009.

    Under £500 millions!!!

    No, no way is any player going to have their net pay reduced.

    The Football League Contract, Form 25, states:
    23. The remuneration of the Player shall be set out in a Schedule attached to this Agreement and
    signed by the parties. The Schedule shall include all remuneration to which the Player is or may be entitled. In the event of any dispute the remuneration set out in the Schedule shall be conclusively deemed to be the full entitlement of the Player.

    The Schedule, shows the weekly pay from……. to……, over 5 years of the contract, if that is the extent of the new contract.

53. If a player get a new contract they get a new pay structure that can mean pay goes up or down. thats how they have cut wages. not by breaking existing contracts and breaking the rules as your seem to be sladerously suggesting in your last to paragraphs Notoverthehill you silly silly man

54. Abramovich is spending on Chelsea has little to do with russian people and there poverty. Our owner is spending his own money not that of his people although you could argue it should belong to his people but they wont get it. In anycase City is good publicity for his nation government and people and he will make money should they ever claw back money off him then they will gain from the money made by city going forward not just the publicity and help city give to the people and business of UAE. As has already been pointed out many clubs are hypocritical anyway in this issue companies always take advantage of people all over the world and many of these companies are involved in sport in some way

55. To “GoingGoingGooner”

    You fear he BPL becoming a 2-3 team race yet thats exactly what FFP is designed to create.

    You realise without City, only 3 teams have won the league since 1995? Without the other evil sugar daddies, Chelsea, well it’s yourselves and Man Utd only. A 2 team race. Great!

    FFP is designed by yourselves, United etc to ensure your position at the top table cannot be challenged again. You just took too long to stop City & Chelsea.

56. Wee Boogie, no I am sorry to say you are wrong – FFP was promoted strongly by Roman Abromovich and he persuaded Uefa to adopt it.

    After that the Premier League came along with its own version, which is about to be implemented.

57. Of course Abramovich wanted it. He’d already spent his fortune on Chelsea, and knew by the time it was implemented his club would not be affected.

    He wants to ensure no-one else can come along and do the same to another club.

58. So what are you saying Tony? That Abramovich and only Abramovich was responsible for persuading UEFA to adopt FFP in it’s current format? That Arsenal and United didn’t have some say in the matter as well?

    And while we’re at it, regarding Premier League FFP perhaps you’d like to explain what THAT leaked letter was all about – on Arsenal headed notepaper no less – urging the Premier League to ensure the PL FFP rules are rigorously enforced and signed off by 4 clubs – Arsenal, Tottenham, United, and Liverpool.

59. M18CTID

    How dare you question that RA went to Platini with an idea called FFP.

    Its a lovely discussion point but quite simply its a myth.

    Platini following his election wanted to do something about the levels of debt at clubs. Platini approached a significant number of owners including RA who signed up to that principal of FFP

    Unfortunately the debts at certain clubs are so huge that the main aim of FFP shifted namely to income v expenditure.

60. I hate what Abromovich’s influence… his money, strategy and him bringing that ordinary one here but I respect the fact that he is actually the only club that work out all the benefit of buy “under-priced club in big city”, spend, and gain through club value going up…

    When others start to copy his model, he put down the barrier to stop others.

    btw, Arsenal ranking no.2 in spending… Why are people still saying Arsene won’t spend… its puzzling to me. I maintain that the defence is a bit thin but as I said, you can either pay 10 to 20 million to get make-shifts and then pay him wages while he sits on the bench for 4 years, or you can take a risk of being a bit thin and wait for someone you spend 30 or even 40 millions that you can play in the coming 8 years.

    The keep is much improved. The attacking mid and box to box is flooded with excellent players since last year. It will be the same to the front section this year when Walcott is back. If Wenger manage to get a world class striker or turn one of the guys into one, the attacking will be terrifying.

    GK is very OK now so only defensive improvement in January or summer. Most of the members are young and this team will be a top top team starting from next year to may be 5 years later. Hopefully the talented kids will take over some spots then.

    The so called trophy draught is the time to go with the stadium and that’s done. It takes two to three years to completely up-grade the team. Its half way through now.

    People simply cannot see that.

61. @WeeBoogie: point taken about the number of teams having won the Premiership but I don’t believe that the FFP was implemented to preserve the oligopoly at the top but rather to ensure the stability of the leagues by limiting debt ratios. Arsenal’s position at the top was largely due to the ability of Arsene Wenger to attract top notch foreign talent to Highbury and to develop young talent NOT because he could pay crazy wages or transfer fees. Arsenal’s succes in the late 90s and the 00s could not have been predicted based on turnover. There have always been dominant teams in football but there was always a hope that your team could bring a few players and have a chance if you were in the top half of the league. Now that has been limited to the top 5 or 6. My fear is that this will be reduced to 2 or 3 that can even dream.

62. M18CTID your point about the “leaked letter” (ooooooooo….) is a bit off. Tottenham and Liverpool weren’t exactly power-houses in Premier League football at the time, were they? And to be honest, we hadn’t been either for several seasons. So hardly old money trying to keep the new money out, like you imply.

    I tried to research how many supporters each club has, but the most recent I could find was from 2013:
    http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/20974695

    Man U: 335m
    Chelsea: 135m
    Liverpool: 71m
    Man City: 18m.

    So all that Man City money isn’t coming from it’s massive fan base around the world.

    According to the Deloitte 2014 Football Money League (which covers the 2012/13 season, so you’d expect the data to overlap with the above viewership figures), Man United has the largest income of Premier League clubs (4th in the world), with 42% of it’s income being ‘commercial’, i.e. sponsorship.

    PSG is fifth with 64% of it’s income being sponsorship, and, surprise surprise, Man City is 6th with 53% of it’s income being commercial.
    Chelsea 7th (32% commercial).
    Arsenal 8th (26% commercial). Arsenal was the only club in the top twenty that had it’s largest source of income from match-day revenue.

    http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_GB/uk/industries/sportsbusinessgroup/sports/football/deloitte-football-money-league/index.htm

    Somehow, Man City has a tiny fan-base around the world, and yet has the largest proportion of it’s massive income–2nd highest in the league and 4th in the world–from sponsorship.

    Well you don’t have to be Stephen Hawking to put two and two together. There is not comparison between Man City and Arsenal. Arsenal is self-funded, and one of it’s main sponsors is The Emirates. Man City is still a tiny club, but it has a billionaire sheikh owner who uses his businesses to pump money into Man City. There are no similarities. Man City is a plastic club that only survives because of the sheikh, it isn’t self-funded or any nonsense like that.

63. I forgot to add, Arsenal has 113m supporters world-wide, which is more than six times as many as Man City. Yet Man City still makes more money each season. Oh yes, nothing at all to do with sheikh Mansour.

    And by the way, our revenue from sponsorship should go up, thanks to new commercial deals, e.g. the new kit deal.

64. The 50m sale of David Luiz from Chelsea to PSG was definitely a cash passed from a Arab oiler to a Russian oiler. Don’t know what hides behind that ridiculous sale but the organized crime figures have been doing such shadow financing for decades. Football not only has become a playground for evil but has also became a legitimate platform to commit evil.

65. Goinggonegunner limited by FFP since it stops lesser clubs taking risks and Investing and base success more and more on revenue as the disparity increases

66. Quincy,

    And United claim to have 659 million fans worldwide which is about 6 times as many as Arsenal yet they don’t generate 6 times as much revenue do they?

    No-one has ever claimed that Mansour’s ownership of City hasn’t been the main factor in the rise of the club, but Informer was pointing out that this isn’t 2008 anymore. It’s 2014 and we’re less reliant than ever on Abu Dhabi cash. One of the main reasons for that is that the club employs some of the best people around to secure the most lucrative sponsorship deals across the globe. Ferran Soriano and Tom Glick have put in some sterling work over the past couple of years and it’s really beginning to pay dividends.

    In comparison, I think Arsenal have sold themselves short in the recent past on that score but as you say you’re now securing much better deals.

67. M18CTID, Man City has roughly 20m supporters around the world. That’s tiny. Man City isn’t really clever at selling itself around the world. “Come sponsor us, 20m supporters around the world”. You can’t deny, the vast majority of your sponsorship is thanks to the sheikh, not because of clever marketing around the world.

68. Quincy the vast majority of sponsors have no more to do with he UAE than any other company in the world most are western corporations. None of the ones in the UAE are related parties according to our accountants or UEFA or the law. None have over paid either. Unless you know the people at City personally or professionally how can you know its not down to clever marketing and given that they are regarded as very very good at there job and very well paid do you think who you have working on that side of things is not relavent at all and if so why wont any football club employ me to do that job? for a lot lot less. If you knew about business and city you would see we push harder than most for deals and do a lot more marketing than most.We push internet content a lot and sponsors in this content and when ever we let people interview are players they have to push our sponsors. If you know about the premier league you will know that its a big bonus for any club if you know about football you will also know we have done well in recent years on the pitch and this leads to more sponsorship often before the glory hunters. You might also know that city own all there players image rights unlike other clubs and of course own other clubs are you saying this gives us no business sponsorship advantage. Something like the campus or stadium should again give us an advantage of the field when compared to most clubs as should being in the second best city in England. As should having offices in New York London and Kuala Lumpur. If your suggesting that its because its who the Sheik is then surly the same could be said for Any club with a rich owner to varying degrees

69. Quincy,

    I think Informer and Will have nailed it pretty much so there isn’t much more to add, suffice to say that while Arsenal reputedly have 113 million fans worldwide, you actually only sell about 800,000 shirts annually. Most of those supporters you have will be so poor that they can only dream of being able to afford an official Arsenal shirt so instead will settle for wering fakes. Hence, even those clubs with huge fanbases don’t really make a great deal of money from merchandising when compared to other revenue streams such as TV money, CL prize money, sponsorship money, and match day/commercial income.

    I’ll also add that when a club secures a sponsorship deal it doesn’t just come down to exposure to your own fans – exposure to neutral fans is key as well. Example: When City played United in what was effectively a title deciding match towards the end of the 2011-12 season, it was watched by the biggest audience in Premier League history. An estimated 600 million fans globally and most of those fans wouldn’t have even been supporters of either club. However, the exposure that City got that night and when Aguero sealed the title in such dramatic fashion a couple of weeks later would’ve been invaluable when securing new, bigger sponsorship deals.

    Also, as Will said, going off your logic what’s the point in employing the best commercial people in the game? City pay Soriano £2 million a year for a very good reason and it’s not to sit on his arse all day twiddling his thumbs.

70. Quincy,

    As for the letter, well maybe Liverpool and Tottenham had an inflated sense of their own self-importance when they stuck their names on it? Either way, what can’t be denied is that both are big clubs (we’re not talking Hull and Leicester here) and part of the 1980’s clique of “Big 5” clubs so any enforcing of the FFP regs would, in their eyes, be to their benefit. Funny thing is though, Liverpool posted losses of £100 million over the past 2 years and would’ve failed UEFA’s FFP if they’d been in Europe last season, while Spurs still can’t seem to get their new stadium project off the ground. Perhaps FFP won’t benefit either club as much as they think.

71. M18CTID, 11:58am

    No-one said commercial revenue was linearly related to the number of fans, did they? But of course there must be a positive correlation.

    And the notion that Man City simply have better marketing people is laughable. Do you honestly believe that amongst the biggest clubs in the world, in the cut-throat business of top-end football, that Man City employs marketing people so vastly superior to those of other top clubs that they generate nearly the same commercial revenue as Man United (£143m vs. £153m), even though United has roughly 20 times as many supporters around the world? That’s stupendous. Obviously all the top clubs employs top marketing people, don’t be so condescending.

    Will Rickson, 3:03pm

    The number of sponsors is irrelevant. The important thing is from which sponsors is the bulk of the money coming.

    Admittedly I know nothing about image rights, so I can’t say anything about that. But regarding your sensational marketing team, see my response to M18CTID.

    And exactly how many millions do you get from New York City FC, Melbourne City FC, and Yokohama F. Marinos? As far as all your clubs, campuses, offices and whatever all around the world, the fact remains, Man City only has 18m supporters, which is tiny compared to the biggest clubs just in England.

    M18CTID, 6:35pm

    Sure, ‘reputedly’, like your reputed 659m United fans. Don’t listen to a report compiled by professionals, let’s have M18CTID’s opinion on how many fans each club has.

    And how many shirts do Man City sell? The only figures I could find were for 2010, and those figures happen to match your figure of 800 000, a little too closely:
    http://www.football-marketing.com/2010/09/03/biggest-selling-football-shirts/
    That website shows that that number of shirt sales is roughly the same for Liverpool, Bayern, Chelsea, and only behind Man Unites, Real Madrid and Barcelona. So actually our shirt sales are very healthy. How many again do Man City sell?

    And those are official sales. And oh yeah, all Arsenal’s supporters are flie infested starving third world people who can’t afford a shirt, whereas all 18m of City’s supporters are sophisticated, upper-class people. There’s no need for that kind of arrogance, mate. We have six times more supporters than you.

    The break-down of each clubs revenue is given in the Deloitte report, there’s no reason for you to suck it out your thumb. In the period under review, you received exactly the same television revenue as we did. We earned over £50m more than you lot from match-day revenue. But of course, the balance was swung in your favour thanks to your commercial revenue.

    Your one good point is about viewership. Firstly, that was one game, and a crucial one in the season, at that. What is the average viewership over a season for the various clubs? That’s a more interesting number. There’s also the fact that United has twenty times as many fans as City. I suspect they got most of the viewers.

    If you really dislike the comparison with Arsenal, then let’s compare you with your own kind, Chelsea. They have about 7.5 times as many fans as City. I’m guessing they also get high viewing figures, even from non-fans, having been very successful in recent time. So they’re probably very similar in those respects to Man City. But Man City got about £143m in commercial revenue, while Chelsea got £84m, that’s 70% more, and keep in mind they have nearly eight times as many fans, and a similar recent history in terms of success. How do you explain that discrepancy? And Bollix to your super-human marketing team.

72. Actually, I just noticed, going by the official numbers, and not those M18CTID would like us to believe, Man United had roughly 3 times as many supporters as us at the time, and generated roughy 2.5 times as much as us from commercial revenue (£152m vs £62M). So maybe a linear relationship is not too far off. If that’s the case, Man City would earn roughly a sixth of what we do from commercial revenue, i.e. roughly £10m compared to the £143m they actually made. I believe you have been hoist with your own petar, M18CTID

73. Quincy,

    You open up by saying you weren’t claiming there is a direct correlation between numbers of fans and commercial revenue but then bizarrely dedicate the whole of your post contradicting yourself and claiming that it is.

    You really don’t seem to get it do you? It’s already been pointed out to you that whatever City earns in commercial revenue, most of the money does not come from Abu-Dhabi based companies. City have signed numerous commercial deals with companies all over the world as alluded to by Informer and Will Rickson. Did you know we have an official car battery partner in Indonesia for example? And regardless of the amount of fans we have, we’re one of the most talked about clubs in world football and that’s an indisputable fact. We also win trophies these days which is always a good way of attracting increased revenue.

    And no, I never said City’s support base is wealthier than Arsenal’s. I was just pointing out that many of these international fans (of all clubs I’ll add) are from poor countries and can barely afford to put a meal on the table for their family, let alone buy a replica shirt.

    Those figures you quote seem decidedly odd though – 40 odd million more fans than Liverpool? Arsenal are a big club but I’m not sure about that one

74. M18CTID, you clearly don’t know the difference between a linear relationship and a positive correlation. And in fact the whole gist of my argument is that becuase of this positive correlation your entire argument about Man City’s revenue is highly implausible, so you also fail to understand the points I was making.

    Regarding your second paragraph, I have already addressed those points, if you bothered to properly read my previous replies.
    “The number of sponsors is irrelevant. The important thing is from which sponsors is the bulk of the money coming.”
    We too have a large number of sponsors and commercial partners, etc. But, just like yours, most of them are small. But where is the bulk of the money coming from?
    And regarding your ‘indisputable fact’, see my closing paragraph about Chelsea.

    “Most of those supporters you have will be so poor that they can only dream of being able to afford an official Arsenal shirt so instead will settle for wearing fakes. Hence, even those clubs with huge fanbases don’t really make a great deal of money from merchandising when compared to other revenue streams such as TV money, CL prize money, sponsorship money, and match day/commercial income.”
    Why do you refer to them as ‘those supporters you have’? Why not just ‘football fans’? And like I pointed out already, we earned exactly the same from televesion revenue, we earned far more from match-day revenue, but Man City make enormously more from commercial revenue.

    And yes, Chelsea have nearly double the amount of fans Liverpool does, despite being just as plastic as Man City. Your point is? Once again, let’s not listen to the experts, let’s have M18CTID’s opinion on how many supporters each club has.

    Really, you clearly have not bothered to properly read my posts. Neither have bothered to answer the main points. I don’t see any point in continuing this argument. Good night.

75. Quincy,

    That’s funny because you haven’t bothered to answer the main points that I and other City fans have been making either, ignoring the fact that we have repeatedly stated that most of City’s commercial revenue does not come from Abu Dhabi. Instead, you went off on one about how many fans each club has as if that should be the only driver behind how much money a club can attract in sponsorship deals – interestingly enough, I read that Bayern Munich have something like 24 million fans globally which isn’t many more than City and is well below Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, and United, yet they pull in more commercial revenue than any other club in world football.

    Anyway, the discussion is going nowhere so I agree it should be put to bed. You have your opinion and I have mine. One day it’ll become clear to you just how big a force City are in world football but in the meantime keep comforting yourself with the notion that we’re a tiny club with a plastic fanbase.

76. Manchester City’s commercial revenue is simply not based on their commercial reach. It is based on the owner pumping money into the club via the commercial income line entry in the accounts. That is obvious even to a fool. PSG did the same thing. That is why City and PSG got fined and sanctioned by UEFA under FFP rules. No one in the world, except deluded Man City fans, believe that Man City are commercially strong.

    To put it in context – in 2013 the Guardian reported the numbers from Deloitte’s and it showed that Manchester City had higher commercial revenues than Manchester Utd. Re read that sentence a few times. Go back and read again. That sentence alone tells you that Man City have cooked the books in order to cheat financially.

    http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/apr/18/premier-league-finances-club-by-club

77. M18CTID,
    Your first sentence shows that you have entirely missed the main point of my argument. I’m finding it quite boring discussing this with you, when I have to constantly repeat myself, and you don’t seem to get the point of what I’m saying.

    As a last point, your comparison to Bayern couldn’t be more off the mark (or arrogant, might I add; they have won nine league titles, eight German Cups and two Champions Leagues since 2000). Every knows Bayern Munich is supporter owned. They have no sugar daddy pulling the strings. Whatever commercial revenue they generate is legitimate. And actually, it’s your pals PSG that generate the most commercial revenue in the world. Explain that one, mate, they’re an even smaller club than you lot! I can’t find anything on Bayern’s number of supporters, only on how many they have in Europe:
    http://www.football-marketing.com/2010/09/09/fc-barcelona-most-popular-football-club-in-europe/
    They’re fifth in *Europe* with 21m. But of course, you’ll only believe a figure if it suits your agenda. On the other hand, people within the club claim to have around 300m supporters world-wide, but of course that must be taken with a pinch of salt.

    One day indeed, just not today. Perhaps twenty years from now, when the next generation of plastic fans have grown up and picked a team to support.

78. jayramfootball, don’t bother, I’ve already tried explaining it to him, he just refuses to listen. Although you’re welcome to continue trying to convince him, because I give up 😀

79. Quincy & jayramfootball,

    If you want to keep burying your heads in the sand lads, that’s your prerogative. I’ve already explained on here that I don’t expect opposition fans to know the ins and outs of everything City are doing (and believe me, there’s an astonishing amount going on off the field) so I’m not going to go all out and criticise your stance but I and others have tried to give you an insight into what’s happening and if you’re still going to ignore it we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

    Quincy, you say perhaps 20 years from now – believe me, it will be far quicker than that. Anyway, I’m off to cream my pants over the latest photos of City’s new state-of-the-art £200 million training academy which is due to open in the next few months. Whatever you’re doing, enjoy your Sunday 😉

80. Quincy,

    Not wanting to drag this on any further and not wanting to kick off a full-blown argument but you might want to read the following piece from a City fan responding to a United fan who asked whether we were worried that Sheikh Mansour might pull the plug if FFP restricts our chances of signing marquee players. It probably explains things better than I have on here and goes into more detail:

    “4.5461 wrote:
    I’m a United fan, feel free to abuse 😉

    Are you not concerned the your owner will sell up if FFP restricts buying the global superstars in future?

    I don’t know if that’s a genuine question due to you not knowing the details or just an opportunity to have a go.

    Either way. I’ll try to explain the project at City, in terms of Utd’s past operations.

    If you look at the growth of Utd, of course they had a larger global fanbase than most English clubs, which took off from the time of the air disaster & the Busby Babes etc, but the true growth of the club has come during the last 20 years or so, with the increased global coverage of football & in particular, English football. Utd have far & away out performed the other English clubs who engineered the Premier League, & their income, & fan base, has gone through the roof in that time. They have achieved that as much through business as through football on the pitch.

    The top clubs engineered the Premier & Champions Leagues, allowing them to buy better players, pay higher wages & thus remain at the top, getting the Champions League money every year & buying even more expensive players, higher wages, taking the best kids, generally a huge advantage that the rest couldn’t compete with. But Utd were sharper still, seeing more & more commercial opportunities globally & exploiting it to generate the revenue they do today. Most of that happened in 20 years, from moderate turnover, to half a billion. Outside England, Barca are a similar story.

    Whilst the media in general have entirely focused on Sheikh Mansour’s spending on players, an enormous amount of his spending has been on the club itself & setting up City as a global business empire. On the pitch, he effectively had to finance 3 teams, a UEFA qualifying, team, then a Champs League qualifying team, then a title winning team, thus a huge outlay on players. But this was needed, in order to get City on the Champs League gravy train & create interest around the world.

    Now City have the income, & the profile to work on the ‘global’ aspects of the business, the investment by Sheikh Mansour in top business brains is already starting to pay off. Arsenal, Liverpool, & Chelsea are being overtaken in actual turnover, by City. Already. We are catching Bayern Munich in that area, already. The clubs know this. THAT’S part of what FFP is for, (as well as t prevent more clubs being taken over & competing) it’s to try & slow down MCFC as a BUSINESS, not to regulate wages or transfer fees (you have inflated them) that’s bullshit. It’s a business thing.

    City are following the very same plan implemented by Utd many years ago, but doing it much bigger & better & faster.

    The huge outlay on players (Mirroring Ferguson’s splurge when the original Prem title winning side was built). The Champions League income. The increased corporate income. The relentless promotion of the club worldwide. The expansion of the ground. All this is already happening.

    Add to that the academy, & worldwide scouting network which will produce a decent number of home grown players plus other players as saleable assets, and the fact that City Football group already owns two teams in Australia & USA, plus part of one in Japan.

    Then there is the upcoming development around the ground which you will see in the future.

    All of this is just the beginning. Look at all those red Liverpool & Utd shirts in the USA vastly outnumbering the City support & you can all relax & think it’s no problem. But look at the City fans outnumbering AC Milan fans, already, & perhaps it will dawn on you. People were laughing at the idea of City winning the league when Sheihk Mansour bought the club. ‘You cant buy the league’ Utd fans used to say when the outragous fees for people like Ferdinand & crazy wage hikes for Keane etc were mentioned. Now it’s ‘you bought the league’. But the laughing has somewhat diminished.

    Now many will probably laugh at the idea of City winning the business league. But after winning the title, we are climbing that league faster than we did the Prem.

    This is a juggernaut & no matter how many bent deals Utd or Arsenal do with UEFA, it is not going to stop. It will soon enough be a totally self sufficient, money making machine, doing exactly what Utd did, but quicker, & eventually one day bigger, because our business people are better at it than yours were & our owner has much more clout to open the right doors in the business world, even if Utd & the cartel are working on UEFA to try & slow it.

    The Sheikh will get back his investment, & his kids will one day own City Football Group, which will be immense.

    You can call it ‘massive’ if you want.”

81. 1 000 words of utter tripe. It addresses nothing we have brought up. You’re still missing the point. It’s a PR piece for Man City. This argument really is tedious now.

82. Quincy,

    Call it a PR piece by all means – of course it is. But it’s also a lot closer to the truth than you’re willing to admit. The goal for City is world domination and with the people we’ve got running the club only a fool would bet against it happening. Your continued ignorance and utter denial in the face of the facts is amusing to say the least.

83. Now you’re changing the argument. It was never about whether the sheikh could make you a successful club, it was about your success being all down to the sheikh. And your PR piece you so proudly showed us, proves that point very nicely.

84. @ Quincy

    A more up to date set of numbers re shirt sales

    http://www.therichest.com/sports/soccer-sports/top-10-highest-selling-club-soccer-jerseys/6/

85. Quincy,

    You couldn’t be more wrong. I acknowledged way back in this topic that if it wasn’t for the Sheikh we wouldn’t be where we are now. There’s not a single City fan that thinks otherwise (seriously, if you find one that does then let me know and I’ll have a word with him.)

    But that wasn’t the argument you were putting forward – you were claiming that the present-day City (not the 2008 version) is overly reliant on revenue from the Sheikh and companies in his homeland and as we’ve explained to you numerous times backed up by facts, that simply isn’t the case these days. Sure, we still have the Etihad sponsorship money and a couple of other much lesser revenue streams from Abu-Dhabi based companies but the majority of our commercial revenue now comes from elsewhere.

    If the Sheikh sold the club in 2009 then our chances of becoming successful would’ve been virtually zero but if he sold it tomorrow it wouldn’t be an issue as we’re already generating enough cash to sustain the club in it’s current form.

86. Mike T,

    Where are Arsenal in that list? 😉

87. @M18CTID

    7th with 800k

88. Mike T,

    Cheers – thought that was the case.

89. Seventh, and according to Deloitte we’re the eight-highest earning club. So that makes complete sense, unlike your snarky comment M18CTID. And I don’t recall sesing Man City anywhere on that list ;), even though they’re supposed the sixth biggest club in the world.

    You still haven’t put forward one argument to support your point that most of your revenue is not related to the sheikh. Not one in the face of the mountain of evidence we have amassed against you. Although I seriously doubt you will be able to understand this. Cheers.

90. Why do you keep going on about shirt sales, when you yourself claim it is only a small part of a club’s revenue? Moreover, it’s plain that Man City barely sells any shirts! And yet you still manage somehow to make snarky comments about how many shirts we sell. Your posts really are quite idiotic.

91. M18CTID keeps baiting me with his idiotic posts. I need to stop replying. I’m just repeating myself over and over. It’s like arguing with a 5 year old.

92. “M18CTID keeps baiting me with his idiotic posts. I need to stop replying. I’m just repeating myself over and over. It’s like arguing with a 5 year old.”

    Arguing with yourself then eh Quincy? 😉

    I’m not baiting you – I’m just re-iterating what I’ve been saying for the past God knows how many posts. It’s you that brought shirt sales and numbers of fans into the equation. So you’ve got more fans than City currently have? Seriously, so what? Last time I looked, they didn’t hand out trophies for that. Now you come to mention it though, if you want to get into a pointless p*ssing contest about numbers of fans, I seem to recall Arsenal being a far better team than City back in the 1980’s yet your crowds dropped lower than ours. On one occasion in 1983 you pulled in less than 14,000 despite being 3rd in the top flight at the time. City were relegated twice in the 80’s but during that decade we never once recorded a gate as low as that, and that was despite us having a bent twat like Swales as chairman who was renowned for reporting lower gate figures than numbers of fans present in order to screw the taxman.

93. You really are delusional, mate. You brought up shirt sales, September 6, 2014 at 6:35 pm.

    And you keep avoiding the argument. We are talking about where your enormous commercial revenue comes from. Not trophies, not shirt sales, you brought those up. And once again you fail to address any of the numerous points brought up in my previous posts. Well done, though, for getting me to fall for your baiting. This is what I get for arguing with a Man City fan.

94. Sorry Quincy, you’re right – I did mention shirt sales but only in relation to the numbers of fans you were saying Arsenal have and pointing out that it’s a tiny percentage.

    As for the rest of it, no I’m not avoiding it – I and others have stated numerous times that the bulk of City’s revenue does not come from Abu Dhabi and yet you still won’t listen. Crikey, a brick wall has a better chance than you of taking in the information.

    World domination – you can bookmark this date and if/when it happens don’t say I didn’t warn you mate 😉

95. Let’s just agree to call each other thick, ok? Good night.

96. Good idea – it works for me 😉