Manchester City - "Emptihad"

[tenpoless]

United fans should be more worried about just how devastating another few years of failure to perform will be on their sponsorship than the frankly, plain as the nose on your face reasons, that sponsors right now, love city

Sponsors love it when They can get an easy and effective advertisement (preferably if it's cheap as well). They care mainly about the number of potential viewers, how diverse the audiences are and if they fit the criteria of potential buyers or customers.

Given how City is still not as big of a "brand" as clubs like Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea world wide suggest that sponsors might actually prefer and love the other three more than City.

You don't have to keep talking about how United fans should be worried. I have no idea why most of the city fans in this thread keep saying it. Firstly, by talking about it again and again, you seem to be the one who's worried here. Secondly, the bolded part shows how little you know about sponsors.

 

[LegendCantona7]

That article was written in March 15. So, approaching City's accounting year end for 2014-2015. From the accounts there was just a £6mill increase in commercial income between y/e 2015 and y/e 2016. No sign of a £40mill increase.

That depends on when it was signed. It could have been signed a month later. They are not going to pay a full extra £40m with a month left of the financial year.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....7/jun/01/premier-league-finances-club-by-club

This says your commercial deal for 2015-2016 was 178m

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....venue-of-473-million-for-last-season-1.674145

According to this your commercial revenue went up to 218m a year later.

United was 268m in 2015/2016

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....7/jun/01/premier-league-finances-club-by-club

ans it has gone up to £276m a year later

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....06/premier-league-finances-club-guide-2016-17

Even their current figures show a small increase on 0.2% on commercial deals.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-45641326

This is from a club who has a bigger shirt manufacturer deal than City by a large margin. It is evident Citys commercial deals have been inflated by their in house sponsors. United revenue has a small increase of 8m in 3 years, whilst City have had a increase of 52m.

 

[SupaFella]

This is from a club who has a bigger shirt manufacturer deal than City by a large margin. It is evident Citys commercial deals have been inflated by their in house sponsors. United revenue has a small increase of 8m in 3 years, whilst City have had a increase of 52m.

Ok i think we will need to apply Occam's razor to the tone of this whole discussion. Afterall just as many other posters you call for a "sense of reason" rather than to pinpoint the value's that have been manipulated in particular so as that we would have even been able to quantify the exact value. And when observing the participants in this thread it's quite obvious that no city fan will subscribe to that "sense of reason" that United employ's here, rather our sense of reason simply states that City has grown a lot as a club as to make it's current revenue realistic.

So Occam's razor: The simplest and most grounded explenation is the more reasonable one. Football clubs can grow in revenue especially when being more succesull than before, so Occam's razor squarly favours the view of the city fans. Allusions to financial manipulation are more out there and those making the allegations lack the data.

Realisticly speaking no city fan will subscribe to the prejudice that United fans apply to our revenue increase. This is only amplified by the idea that United fans will also look at this subjectivly from a perspective of the rivarly and givent that a banterish title like Emptihad more or less can be perceived as a "anti-city" thread that reasonably should act as bait to city fans on this forum. The latter is not nessecarily an issue as united fans are free to post on their forum what they want and we as guests better know our place. However when it regards a banter thread it does tend to increase it's value if the humour behind it would actually be good too. The problem afcourse is that in a situation where City is current champs and leading the league versus United having a mare of a season that any attempts at sportive mockery are easy to ignore. So with few room to mock City in a banter threat the United fans might rather wish to move to allegations of financial manipulation if they still need something to bash City here, the problem is that even in this discussion the United fans are completly unconvincing beyond the point where they are just stamping their feet on the ground and self declaring their narrative as the correct one. This behaviour of self declared correctness comes across as sad and particullary "reaching" within the context of the current sportive reality.

BUT by all means pls continue, for in a way it's actually weirdly entertaining to see United fans needing to overreach far for straws in a thread where they wanted to mock City, indeed i find that many United fans are making a mockery of themselves and that often motivates me to engage them even more to indeed make this something of a "joke thread".

Pls provide more detailed data.

 

[Treble]

City's growth is somewhat artificial in the sense that it is due also to a significant political influence of their owners in the Middle East. But it's naive to think that the huge investment in the club is bad from a purely business perspective. Actually, it's good business. At one point they will be able to sell the club for a lot more money than they have invested. Even now they could arguably sell it on proft. Their squad alone is worth 1bn or more. Just 1/3 of their squad would cost 700m in the current market: KDB, Sane, Sterling, Jesus, Stones, Laporte, Mendy and Bernardo. They are a well run business.

 

[LegendCantona7]

Ok i think we will need to apply Occam's razor to the tone of this whole discussion. Afterall just as many other posters you call for a "sense of reason" rather than to pinpoint the value's that have been manipulated in particular so as that we would have even been able to quantify the exact value. And when observing the participants in this thread it's quite obvious that no city fan will subscribe to that "sense of reason" that United employ's here, rather our sense of reason simply states that City has grown a lot as a club as to make it's current revenue realistic.

So Occam's razor: The simplest and most grounded explenation is the more reasonable one. Football clubs can grow in revenue especially when being more succesull than before, so Occam's razor squarly favours the view of the city fans. Allusions to financial manipulation are more out there and those making the allegations lack the data.

Realisticly speaking no city fan will subscribe to the prejudice that United fans apply to our revenue increase. This is only amplified by the idea that United fans will also look at this subjectivly from a perspective of the rivarly and givent that a banterish title like Emptihad more or less can be perceived as a "anti-city" thread that reasonably should act as bait to city fans on this forum. The latter is not nessecarily an issue as united fans are free to post on their forum what they want and we as guests better know our place. However when it regards a banter thread it does tend to increase it's value if the humour behind it would actually be good too. The problem afcourse is that in a situation where City is current champs and leading the league versus United having a mare of a season that any attempts at sportive mockery are easy to ignore. So with few room to mock City in a banter threat the United fans might rather wish to move to allegations of financial manipulation if they still need something to bash City here, the problem is that even in this discussion the United fans are completly unconvincing beyond the point where they are just stamping their feet on the ground and self declaring their narrative as the correct one. This behaviour of self declared correctness comes across as sad and particullary "reaching" within the context of the current sportive reality.

BUT by all means pls continue, for in a way it's actually weirdly entertaining to see United fans needing to overreach far for straws in a thread where they wanted to mock City, indeed i find that many United fans are making a mockery of themselves and that often motivates me to engage them even more to indeed make this something of a "joke thread".

Pls provide more detailed data.

Clubs revenue do increase and their commercial do increase by a large margin, but thats only after they signed a major sponsorship deal. For example Uniteds commercial deal increased due to the Adidas and Chevrolet deals. It has gone stale since. Whilst City, without announcing any major sponsoship deals has increased by £52m in 3 years. That does not add up, your deal with Nike started in 2013 and your deal with the Etihad started in 2011. Then a newpaper ran a story that it has doubled after 3 years. I am sorry, but that is just inflating it for the sake of it. You only get £12m a year for the Nike deal and yet if it is true, get 80m a year for the Etihad deal, a deal that started off at 40m a year. If the Sheikh does call it quits, then not only will he leaves, so would a large proportion of your revenue.

 

[Thunderhead]

Clubs revenue do increase and their commercial do increase by a large margin, but thats only after they signed a major sponsorship deal. For example Uniteds commercial deal increased due to the Adidas and Chevrolet deals. It has gone stale since. Whilst City, without announcing any major sponsoship deals has increased by £52m in 3 years. That does not add up, your deal with Nike started in 2013 and your deal with the Etihad started in 2011. Then a newpaper ran a story that it has doubled after 3 years. I am sorry, but that is just inflating it for the sake of it. You only get £12m a year for the Nike deal and yet if it is true, get 80m a year for the Etihad deal, a deal that started off at 40m a year. If the Sheikh does call it quits, then not only will he leaves, so would a large proportion of your revenue.

I think the big deals that accounted for that were Eaton, Nissan and Tinder, also in the last few years I *think* we've taken on another 50+ commercial staff so even the smaller 500k deals will all add up, but yeah there will be some inflated 'middle eastern' partners in there but even accounting for that I'd still say if the Sheikh sold up and dogged off I don't believe commercial revenue would drop off a cliff as some think, it would possibly drop off 20% as I think dependent on when he sells that Ethiad would still be the main sponsor, though it's a mute point as I don't think he'll be going anywhere in the next 5-10 years or so.

I really think clubs should have to publish commercial deals and the valuations, would save all this sort of conjecture.

 

[SupaFella]

I think the big deals that accounted for that were Eaton, Nissan and Tinder, also in the last few years I *think* we've taken on another 50+ commercial staff so even the smaller 500k deals will all add up, but yeah there will be some inflated 'middle eastern' partners in there but even accounting for that I'd still say if the Sheikh sold up and dogged off I don't believe commercial revenue would drop off a cliff as some think, it would possibly drop off 20% as I think dependent on when he sells that Ethiad would still be the main sponsor, though it's a mute point as I don't think he'll be going anywhere in the next 5-10 years or so.

I really think clubs should have to publish commercial deals and the valuations, would save all this sort of conjecture.

My "sense of reason" would have me follow that narrative too. Sure in order to leverage and invest in our team deals have likely been inflated in the past but the relevant question all trough this discussion is indeed quantifying what the dropoff would be at a point where city is arguably on top of the league and likely to stay there for the next 5-10 years.

In that sense the city fans simply tend to be highly confident of their management and extremely pleased with how things are being run and why wouldn't they? Besides the sugar daddy'ing Mansour has also proven to be a excellent owner in every other aspect like improving facility's to top notch status or creating affiliations with feeder teams aswell as having provided us with a wealth of quality players that are fitted to a well thought out team profile and style. If revenue is somewhat inflated then still we cannot look besides the hughe rise that City had eitherway under Mansour, the extra injected is more likely going to be icing on the cake. Indeed we feel we should be way more happy for the type of owners we have than that United should be happy for the owners they have.

Clubs revenue do increase and their commercial do increase by a large margin, but thats only after they signed a major sponsorship deal. For example Uniteds commercial deal increased due to the Adidas and Chevrolet deals. It has gone stale since. Whilst City, without announcing any major sponsoship deals has increased by £52m in 3 years. That does not add up, your deal with Nike started in 2013 and your deal with the Etihad started in 2011. Then a newpaper ran a story that it has doubled after 3 years. I am sorry, but that is just inflating it for the sake of it. You only get £12m a year for the Nike deal and yet if it is true, get 80m a year for the Etihad deal, a deal that started off at 40m a year. If the Sheikh does call it quits, then not only will he leaves, so would a large proportion of your revenue.

Ill give you some credit for trying to aproach the argument as you do, but i would like to ask of you to specificly quantify the propportion of revenue that would be lost with fundamented reasons for that number, going from the perspective that one who makes the claim has the burden of the proof. If you can calculate a specific value out of the numbers you provide here then just the better for youre argument. Do take in mind that reasonably speaking City fans won't be worried about some relative small amount of inflated numbers even if true given how that has factored into growth of revenue in the last 10 years, we really need a significant number that would for example put the wage budget under substantial pressure.

I really think clubs should have to publish commercial deals and the valuations, would save all this sort of conjecture.

Yes, admittingly the United fans lack the transparent data to support their argument, though noone forces them to persue that argument. Their willingness to make conclusions on data that is lacking can show their own willingess to make subjective conclusions.

 

[tomaldinho1]

City's growth is somewhat artificial in the sense that it is due also to a significant political influence of their owners in the Middle East. But it's naive to think that the huge investment in the club is bad from a purely business perspective. Actually, it's good business. At one point they will be able to sell the club for a lot more money than they have invested. Even now they could arguably sell it on proft. Their squad alone is worth 1bn or more. Just 1/3 of their squad would cost 700m in the current market: KDB, Sane, Sterling, Jesus, Stones, Laporte, Mendy and Bernardo. They are a well run business.

Very well run

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbym...on-to-new-york-city-fc-and-melbourne-city-fc/

 

[Treble]

Very well run

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbym...on-to-new-york-city-fc-and-melbourne-city-fc/

If anything, that article proves my point. The idea behind City Football Group (CFG) looks quite smart in business terms. It allows Man City to grow and at one point the CFG will be worth more than the money Masour has invested in it. This sounds ominious: "The scale and scope of the City Football Group operation worldwide dwarf any competitors."

Edit: FIFA should act before it is too late. Otherwise, CFG/City might become a football monster (if they are not already).

 

[SupaFella]

Very well run

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbym...on-to-new-york-city-fc-and-melbourne-city-fc/

Sloppy article. For example:


-> "For example, CFG consolidated revenue is £514m. If we added Manchester City (£473m), New York City FC and Melbourne City (£8.4m), CFM (£18m) and CFS (£13m) it would total £542.4m, £28m more than the amount shown by the CFG financials."


It's not exactly great aritmitic here if you count those numbers toghether. The author apparently failed to actually mention the number of NYCFC which is only mentioned further down

-> "The CFG financials state that NYCFC generated £30m and Melbourne City £8.4m leaving the smaller entities accounting for £2.6m."

Furthermore, the article caims to be working with 2016/2017 numbers. The impression is made of a large net loss of 71 million dollars made by CFG over that year and that a lot of that loss has been strategicly accounted with the smaller teams. Yet the numbers i find for CFG of wiki tells another picture of the 2017 financials

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Football_Group

This being wiki i can also look up the financial statements of the company afcourse. But as it is reported there for 2017 for CFC as a whole:
revenue 473.375£ or 620 million usd
net income 1 million £.

Here is the source that wiki refers too:
https://annualreport2017.mancity.com/assets/download/Financials.pdf

So the point is rather completly moot if the CFG group proves profitable as a whole atleast for what regards this article. There is no financial hole to be found anymore that would need to be strategicly stuffed away.

In fact i'm not sure how shitty the article is or if he used some outdated information but claiming there to be a large net loss of 70 million dollar when CFG actually proves just profitable in their 2017 financial statement is quite the error. Did you actually research the validity of this article yourself as to ensure it was correct? Can you perhaps explain this discrepancy in numbers?

 

[tomaldinho1]

If anything, that article proves my point. The idea behind City Football Group (CFG) looks quite smart in business terms. It allows Man City to grow and at one point the CFG will be worth more than the money Masour has invested in it. This sounds ominious: "The scale and scope of the City Football Group operation worldwide dwarf any competitors."

Edit: FIFA should act before it is too late. Otherwise, CFG/City might become a football monster (if they are not already).

Yes that's my point - very well run.

 

[Thunderhead]

If anything, that article proves my point. The idea behind City Football Group (CFG) looks quite smart in business terms. It allows Man City to grow and at one point the CFG will be worth more than the money Masour has invested in it. This sounds ominious: "The scale and scope of the City Football Group operation worldwide dwarf any competitors."

Edit: FIFA should act before it is too late. Otherwise, CFG/City might become a football monster (if they are not already).

I probably agree with this, and funny enough the rumours are the CFG are about to announce a deal in China. I think football clubs should be football clubs, they should be free to partner with other clubs if they so wish but shouldn't be under the same umbrella company. I'm also surprised other clubs aren't doing this, I remember mocking united fans about the latest noodle partner back in the day but they were seeing things then 10 years before everyone else, Liverpool, Arsenal were and possibly still are so far behind the curve on this, they should have been maximising revenues years ago but don't seem to either want to or don't have the commercial management team to do so.

 

[SupaFella]

Yes that's my point - very well run.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Football_Group

CFG revenue in 2017: 620 million $
CFG profit 2017: 1.5 million $

for the group as a whole

VERY well run indeed

 

[tenpoless]

"Please provide more data, United fans can't back up their arguments"
Proceed to use wikipedia as a source. Well done.

 

[SupaFella]

https://annualreport2017.mancity.com/assets/download/Financials.pdf

Cant fault Wiki for referencing their sources

 

[tomaldinho1]

Sloppy article. For example:


-> "For example, CFG consolidated revenue is £514m. If we added Manchester City (£473m), New York City FC and Melbourne City (£8.4m), CFM (£18m) and CFS (£13m) it would total £542.4m, £28m more than the amount shown by the CFG financials."


It's not exactly great aritmitic here if you count those numbers toghether. The author apparently failed to actually mention the number of NYCFC which is only mentioned further down

-> "The CFG financials state that NYCFC generated £30m and Melbourne City £8.4m leaving the smaller entities accounting for £2.6m."

Furthermore, the article caims to be working with 2016/2017 numbers. The impression is made of a large net loss of 71 million dollars made by CFG over that year and that a lot of that loss has been strategicly accounted with the smaller teams. Yet the numbers i find for CFG of wiki tells another picture of the 2017 financials

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Football_Group

This being wiki i can also look up the financial statements of the company afcourse. But as it is reported there for 2017 for CFC as a whole:
revenue 473.375£ or 620 million usd
net income 1 million £.

edit: these numbers seem to be correct, another source:
https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/cfg/financials?query=income-statement

So the point is rather completly moot if the CFG group proves profitable as a whole atleast for what regards this article. There is no financial hole to be found anymore that would need to be strategicly stuffed away.

In fact i'm not sure how shitty the article is or if he used some outdated information but claiming there to be a large net loss of 70 million dollar when CFG actually proves just profitable in their 2017 financial statement is quite the error. Did you actually research the validity of this article yourself as to ensure it was correct? Can you perhaps explain this discrepancy in numbers?

You've been very quick to trash the article but your first point shows you've skimmed through and not read this properly. To simplify he is saying: CFG consolidated revenue is stated as £512m but if you add City, NYCFC, Melbourne, CFM and CFS together you get £542m. I realise he didn't include the number for NYCFC which is why you probably missed it.

Furthermore, please don't use wiki for anything you want to be accurate on. You can read CFG's financial report - the paperwork from the company themselves - which is the writer's source. If anyone is an accountant it'd be great to understand this in full (I'm intrigued by the similarity in size between the loss and the 'financing activities') but given the financial report from CFG themselves has them operating at a ~£70m loss I'd side with the guy who wrote the article.

Edit: I am not an accountant so open to being educated on this.

'

 

[rotherham_red]

https://annualreport2017.mancity.com/assets/download/Financials.pdf

Cant fault Wiki for referencing their sources

You do know that companies very rarely account accurately, don't you? They always hide things when it is convenient. Shit, I work in the charity sector, and that sort of thing is rife even here, where we maximise our expenditure and minimise our income, etc.

Take the fact that so many questions from neutral parties have been raised about their revenues at face value mate. The more you argue it, the more it comes across as delusion.

 

[SupaFella]

You do know that companies very rarely account accurately, don't you?

You do understand that it's fraud when they don't right? And that the punishment for fraud can be very severe? And that they are audited?

This aint some hollow shell that's trying to sell some pumped up shared, this is a "big boat" as they might say in certain financial lingo. One does not run such a succesfull bussiness in th ground over some minor accounting details.

Sure, there exist a lot of accounting tricks and the devil might be in the detail. So why don't you make an in depth analysis and tell us exactly where it's at?

You've been very quick to trash the article but your first point shows you've skimmed through and not read this properly. To simplify he is saying: CFG consolidated revenue is stated as £512m but if you add City, NYCFC, Melbourne, CFM and CFS together you get £542m. I realise he didn't include the number for NYCFC which is why you probably missed it.

No that was my point he forgot to include the number of NYCFC, so a bit sloppy when doing an excersise of adding up.

Furthermore, please don't use wiki for anything you want to be accurate on. You can read CFG's financial report - the paperwork from the company themselves - which is the writer's source. If anyone is an accountant it'd be great to understand this in full (I'm intrigued by the similarity in size between the loss and the 'financing activities') but given the financial report from CFG themselves has them operating at a ~£70m loss I'd side with the guy who wrote the article.

Edit: I am not an accountant so open to being educated on this.

It's a bit unwarranted to trash wiki when the page has the source provided. I find that many wiki pages tend to be a great source for source material as a whole nowadays, or atleast this page was. But that depends on the scrutiny by which one aproaches it looking at the references to sources.

(The only peculiar form of accounting that would seem to warrant the perception of a 70 million loss accounted differently is a net loss to player transfers of around 70 million for the group as a whole that gets accounted to assets.)*
*edit nope, read that wrong, it's still 1 million profit after that cost.


You can see this on page 8 3rd tab. But also take in mind "opperations excluding player trading" which shows 88 million £ profit. Thats actually pretty good for us, basicly we should be able to invest that amount of money netto into players every year and likely that figure is going to rise too.... to be fair now that you guys bored me into checking the details myself for lack of being them provided i have to say i'm prositivly impressed by how healthy it all looks.

 

[tomaldinho1]

No that was my point he forgot to include the number of NYCFC, so a bit sloppy when doing an excersise of adding up.



It's a bit unwarranted to trash wiki when the page has the source provided. I find that many wiki pages tend to be a great source for source material as a whole nowadays, or atleast this page was. But that depends on the scrutiny by which one aproaches it looking at the references to sources.

The only peculiar form of accounting that would seem to warrant the perception of a 70 million loss accounted differently is a net loss to player transfers of around 70 million for the group as a whole that gets accounted to assets. It's not common to bussiness that you would buy people and account them as assets of a given value however i presume that this is actually common to the world of football. Ive read a bunch of financial statements before just not of any football clubs. A lot of the club's worth is denominated in the value of it's players and that makes sense whereas transfer costs arn't nessecarily reoccuring on a yearly basis.

Wiki is a great concept but it shouldn't be considered a good reference point in general. Hence why you can't reference wiki articles when writing a dissertation for example; it is not a trusted source. I stand by advising you not to use it as a reference.

I'm pleased you've toned down your reply from describing the article as 'shitty' and completely dismissing it when it turns out it's actually accurate.

For the record there's not a 'perception' of a £70m loss. There is a £70m loss. If you read the financial statement it's actually over a £100m loss prior to factoring in 'profit on player registrations' (see below from KPMG's football benchmark)


Profit/loss on disposal of players’ registrations

It represents the difference (+/-) between the income associated to the sale of players’ registrations, and the net book value of the player registration recorded as an intangible asset.

 

[SupaFella]

Wiki is a great concept but it shouldn't be considered a good reference point in general. Hence why you can't reference wiki articles when writing a dissertation for example; it is not a trusted source. I stand by advising you not to use it as a reference.

Again, no need to bash Wiki if the source is provided. It's just memish to be in the anti wiki crowd but if people would just do their own bloody research they could have easily found it trough that reference and it was the first page one would find for this. In contrast we have people just posting a link that gives a skewed impression and acting as it's gospel withought further scrutiny too, but wiki afcourse is deffinatly tottaly open game for this scrutiny huh?

Again, just for reference, the source provided
https://annualreport2017.mancity.com/assets/download/Financials.pdf

I'm pleased you've toned down your reply from describing the article as 'shitty' and completely dismissing it when it turns out it's actually accurate.

I think you have mistaken yourself in youre impression, the word i would use is sloppy and i still dismiss it in relevance to this discussion for the faulty impression of net losses being made and accounting tricks used to cover them up. I'm sure however that you will understand this upon closer review. To give further scrutiny: the article should provide a link to the financials of CFG, but actually rather links to a filling agency of sorts, i dare you to find the source he would have used for his numbers from the links he provided hah.

For the record there's not a 'perception' of a £70m loss. There is a £70m loss. If you read the financial statement it's actually over a £100m loss prior to factoring in 'profit on player registrations' (see below from KPMG's football benchmark)


Profit/loss on disposal of players’ registrations

It represents the difference (+/-) between the income associated to the sale of players’ registrations, and the net book value of the player registration recorded as an intangible asset.

I think you need to check the tabs on page 8 again? 1st tab is "Operations excluding player trading", the second tab is "Player trading 13 month period" and the 3rd tab is "Total 13 month period". So withought the overal result of player trading the net income is around 90 million £, but city football group as a whole payed about 90 million £ netto in new players so the end result is practicly break even. In particular it bought for about 120 million £ in new players and sold 30 million £ worth of players.

 

[Denis_unwise]

You can see this on page 8 3rd tab. But also take in mind "opperations excluding player trading" which shows 88 million £ profit. Thats actually pretty good for us, basicly we should be able to invest that amount of money netto into players every year and likely that figure is going to rise too.... to be fair now that you guys bored me into checking the details myself for lack of being them provided i have to say i'm prositivly impressed by how healthy it all looks.

You do not seem to have the most basic grasp of business accounting & practices. Did you used to be an NHS Manager by any chance? If you think CFG is in a healthy position i'd hate to think you were in any way involved in the pension investment sector as there will be a lot of skint OAP's around.

There have been various common sense arguments & you have been linked a multitude of factual articles outlining the perilous state of CFG & MCFC. You fail to read anything properly & come back quoting works of fiction from Wiki.

There is a saying in business that turnover is vanity & profit is sanity. If we take City's accounts at face value we can see the people running the club are clearly insane. A £1Mill profit on a £500Mill turnover is tiny.

On a side note. When their is a red line under the words you type it means you have made a spelling mistake. No excuse for sloppy figures & sloppy grammar.

 

[Thunderhead]

here's an article on possibly why commercial revenue is growing so fast, it's bloody long but quite interesting if you're into football finances etc. Ferran Soriano is the driving force and he wanted to do what city are doing with the CFG at Barca but was forced out

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/15/manchester-city-football-group-ferran-soriano

This is quite telling

In fact, when Soriano’s gang of smart young businessmen took over Barcelona in 2003, it was a loss-making club. As finance chief, Soriano helped deliver a spiralling “virtuous circle” of high investment, trophies and then even higher revenues. Forceful and analytical, he had built and sold a global consultancy business by the age of 33; at Barcelona, where he was nicknamed both “the Panzer” and “the Computer”, he made a strong-willed but sensible counterpoint to the club’s mercurial president, Joan Laporta. But Soriano also saw Barcelona as something far bigger than a city club, while realising that the global football business itself was poised to enter a new era. In 2006, at a talk Soriano delivered at Birkbeck College in London, he presented 28 slides that set out his early vision. Thanks to the phenomenal growth in their worldwide fan bases, he noted, big clubs were being transformed from promoters and organisers “of local events, like a circus” into “global entertainment companies like Walt Disney”. If big clubs seized the opportunity to “capture the growth and become global franchises”, they would soon stand apart from their rivals, creating a new, world-conquering elite.

 

[SupaFella]

You do not seem to have the most basic grasp of business accounting & practices.

Au contraire, i think you betray youre lack of knowledge with the following comment:

There is a saying in business that turnover is vanity & profit is sanity. If we take City's accounts at face value we can see the people running the club are clearly insane. A £1Mill profit on a £500Mill turnover is tiny.

Actually common business logic dictates that you should invest when you expect that you can grow, taking profit is for when the company has established itself fully in the market share it believes it can attain. This is also amplified by the expectation that taking more profit would result in more taxes. Whatever, youre lack of knowledge in business shows and i shouldn't expect better of you from previous posts.

 

[Whiskey Red]

I was reading the Mirror's article on the sale of academy players by the top 6 clubs and what stuck out to me was just how much City was making from selling academy players, they are miles ahead on that metric. Have they deliberately set up their academy for the sale of young players?

I can't imagine their youth program is that much bigger than the other 5 clubs so they are clearly doing something very different. It would be interesting to see figures for academy players brought through the youth system of the big 6 to the senior level and then sold or if they managed to cement their position long term in the first team. I imagine that would account for the differences.

10 or fewer first team appearances

• Arsenal - £11,640,000
• Chelsea - £6,550,851
• Liverpool - £3,310,000
• Manchester City - £70,672,876
• Manchester United - £9,752,000
• Tottenham Hotspur - £11,788,527

https://www.irishmirror.ie/sport/soccer/soccer-news/revealed-how-much-big-six-13429455

 

[LegendCantona7]

I think the big deals that accounted for that were Eaton, Nissan and Tinder, also in the last few years I *think* we've taken on another 50+ commercial staff so even the smaller 500k deals will all add up, but yeah there will be some inflated 'middle eastern' partners in there but even accounting for that I'd still say if the Sheikh sold up and dogged off I don't believe commercial revenue would drop off a cliff as some think, it would possibly drop off 20% as I think dependent on when he sells that Ethiad would still be the main sponsor, though it's a mute point as I don't think he'll be going anywhere in the next 5-10 years or so.

I really think clubs should have to publish commercial deals and the valuations, would save all this sort of conjecture.

The Nissan deal happened in July 2014, the Eaton deal May 2017 and Tinder April 2018. Between 2016 and 2017 your commercial revenue went up from £178m to 218m. The deals you mention were done outside that time period, 1 would have shown an increase in the 2015-2016 period and the other 2 between 2017/2018 and 2018/2019. Yet all these commercial deals the last couple of years and your increase in commercial revenue has been small in comparison to between 2016-2017 when there wasnt a major commercial signed for the commercial revenue to increase by £40m.

 

[Denis_unwise]

Ferran Soriano is the driving force and he wanted to do what city are doing with the CFG at Barca but was forced out

Barca were a huge global club before Soriano became involved. They were also regarded as the GOAT club side & had the GOAT player in Messi. It's not like Soriano was selling ice to eskimo's. Companies would be trying to throw money at them left right & center to be associated with them. This is where the Soriano myth falls down though. If by some hare brained logic you do believe that Soriano is capable of doing what he did at Barca at any other club you would have to think why would Barca let go of the goose that lays the golden eggs.

 

[tomaldinho1]

Again, no need to bash Wiki if the source is provided. It's just memish to be in the anti wiki crowd but if people would just do their own bloody research they could have easily found it trough that reference and it was the first page one would find for this. In contrast we have people just posting a link that gives a skewed impression and acting as it's gospel withought further scrutiny too, but wiki afcourse is deffinatly tottaly open game for this scrutiny huh?

Again, just for reference, the source provided
https://annualreport2017.mancity.com/assets/download/Financials.pdf



I think you have mistaken yourself in youre impression, the word i would use is sloppy and i still dismiss it in relevance to this discussion for the faulty impression of net losses being made and accounting tricks used to cover them up. I'm sure however that you will understand this upon closer review. To give further scrutiny: the article should provide a link to the financials of CFG, but actually rather links to a filling agency of sorts, i dare you to find the source he would have used for his numbers from the links he provided hah.



I think you need to check the tabs on page 8 again? 1st tab is "Operations excluding player trading", the second tab is "Player trading 13 month period" and the 3rd tab is "Total 13 month period". So withought the overal result of player trading the net income is around 90 million £, but city football group as a whole payed about 90 million £ netto in new players so the end result is practicly break even. In particular it bought for about 120 million £ in new players and sold 30 million £ worth of players.

1) Not bashing wiki - as stated it's a great concept but not a reliable source. Not sure why this is a sticking point for you, completely unrelated to the CFG issue. You rate wiki highly, I don't - let's leave this point behind.
2) You said you weren't sure if the article was 'shitty' or 'outdated' when in fact it is neither. Also, frustratingly given how much you are writing on here, I can tell you haven't bothered to follow the correct link because it goes to Companies House. If you haven't done this, you haven't bothered to read CFG's financial report and so much of what you are saying is inaccurate.
3) Even more frustratingly you are reading the wrong report for your last point. We are talking about CFG not Manchester City. That's literally the entire point of his article - that CFG has offloaded ~£100m to NYCFC and Melbourne City FC.

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

In a thread about City. Your point ?

You can talk about us until you're blue in the face but the fact is City are not, and never will be, a concern for us. As such, your comparisons, warnings and subtle taunts are meaningless.

 

[Sassy Colin]

You can talk about us until you're blue in the face but the fact is City are not, and never will be, a concern for us. As such, your comparisons, warnings and subtle taunts are meaningless.

Are these cretins still trying to pretend that City isn't plastic?

 

[padr81]

I was reading the Mirror's article on the sale of academy players by the top 6 clubs and what stuck out to me was just how much City was making from selling academy players, they are miles ahead on that metric. Have they deliberately set up their academy for the sale of young players?

I can't imagine their youth program is that much bigger than the other 5 clubs so they are clearly doing something very different. It would be interesting to see figures for academy players brought through the youth system of the big 6 to the senior level and then sold or if they managed to cement their position long term in the first team. I imagine that would account for the differences.

10 or fewer first team appearances

• Arsenal - £11,640,000
• Chelsea - £6,550,851
• Liverpool - £3,310,000
• Manchester City - £70,672,876
• Manchester United - £9,752,000
• Tottenham Hotspur - £11,788,527

https://www.irishmirror.ie/sport/soccer/soccer-news/revealed-how-much-big-six-13429455

Yeah pretty much. Its a case of we bring in top rated kids, give them till 20-21 and if they aren't making the push on like Foden, Diaz, Sancho (who the club wanted to keep), they are moved on for anywhere from £5-15m each, with Iheanacho being the exception thus far selling for £25m.

 

[padr81]

Barca were a huge global club before Soriano became involved. They were also regarded as the GOAT club side & had the GOAT player in Messi. It's not like Soriano was selling ice to eskimo's. Companies would be trying to throw money at them left right & center to be associated with them. This is where the Soriano myth falls down though. If by some hare brained logic you do believe that Soriano is capable of doing what he did at Barca at any other club you would have to think why would Barca let go of the goose that lays the golden eggs.

He rebuilt the GOAT club, they were loss making, and it was years before Messi and Pep when himself and Txiki turned things around. They took over a loss making Barca who hadn't won the league since 99 in 03, in fact they hadn't won a trophy in the 4 years. After 3 years in the job they had a CL and two league titles before Messi, Pep and co. dismantled Europe.

Everything he's built at City he wanted to build at Barca. He wanted The BFG (what a cool name that would've been) and he only agreed to join City provided they allowed him to build CFG. The CFG is his baby and his plan since 2003.

Whilst its been great for us at City, just think what a Barca Football Group would have achieved by now? A Barcelona building towards unlimited funds... What he had to do at City with money, he'd of been able to accomplish on name alone with Barca imho...

The guy is a visionary who intends to completely revolutionise football off the field. We at City are lucky we have him. He's created an amazing group in CFG and if Barca had listened 15 or so years ago, he'd of created an absolute untouchable monster. City are incredibly lucky Barca dropped the ball on this one and we picked up the pieces.

 

[Gentleman Jim]

Barca were a huge global club before Soriano became involved. They were also regarded as the GOAT club side & had the GOAT player in Messi. It's not like Soriano was selling ice to eskimo's. Companies would be trying to throw money at them left right & center to be associated with them. This is where the Soriano myth falls down though. If by some hare brained logic you do believe that Soriano is capable of doing what he did at Barca at any other club you would have to think why would Barca let go of the goose that lays the golden eggs.

For someone who makes such bombastic posts you have very little substance to back it up.
Your timeline on the events at Barca and your total lack of understanding displayed about the internal workings of that club expose you as the one eyed blusterer you come across as.
Maybe even you would agree that he and Txiki made the right call in appointing inexperienced Pep over world class José to succeed Rijkard?

 

[Denis_unwise]

He rebuilt the GOAT club, they were loss making, and it was years before Messi and Pep when himself and Txiki turned things around. They took over a loss making Barca who hadn't won the league since 99 in 03, in fact they hadn't won a trophy in the 4 years. After 3 years in the job they had a CL and two league titles before Messi, Pep and co. dismantled Europe.

Whilst its been great for us at City, just think what a Barca Football Group would have achieved by now? A Barcelona building towards unlimited funds... What he had to do at City with money, he'd of been able to accomplish on name alone with Barca imho...

They won the league just after Soriano joined. They had already been building up to this with the arrivals of Laporta & Rijkaad. Messi had also been promoted to the first team. The 2 good seasons 04-05 / 05 -06 enabled him to increase revenues. It was more a case of Soriano getting lucky & being in the right place at the right time. It should also be noted that after he left they had to take on huge loans to stay afloat. The clubs debt had also risen.

https://www.si.com/more-sports/2012/08/28/ferran-soriano

Maybe even you would agree that he and Txiki made the right call in appointing inexperienced Pep over world class José to succeed Rijkard?

It was Cruyff who gave Pep the nod over Mourinho. Laporte wanted Morinho but was advised against by Cruyff due to his style of play. Mourinho was interveiwed by Soriano. It though was Cruyff's opinion which carried weight.

 

[Gentleman Jim]

i




It was Cruyff who gave Pep the nod over Mourinho. Laporte wanted Morinho but was advised against by Cruyff due to his style of play. Mourinho was interveiwed by Soriano. It though was Cruyff's opinion which carried weight.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...ster-city-guardiola-mourinho-soriano-11399067


Also see Graham Hunter and Guillame Ballague’s books.
No doubt you will claim to know better.
I don’t doubt that Cruijff’s opinion was sought but he was not charged with the selection just consulted as a courtesy.

 

[padr81]

They won the league just after Soriano joined. They had already been building up to this with the arrivals of Laporta & Rijkaad. Messi had also been promoted to the first team. The 2 good seasons 04-05 / 05 -06 enabled him to increase revenues. It was more a case of Soriano getting lucky & being in the right place at the right time. It should also be noted that after he left they had to take on huge loans to stay afloat. The clubs debt had also risen.

https://www.si.com/more-sports/2012/08/28/ferran-soriano




It was Cruyff who gave Pep the nod over Mourinho. Laporte wanted Morinho but was advised against by Cruyff due to his style of play. Mourinho was interveiwed by Soriano. It though was Cruyff's opinion which carried weight.

They won the league in 99 he was appointed in 2003, 4 years no trophy, 3 years later they had 2 titles and a CL, exactly what I said.

 

[SupaFella]

1) Not bashing wiki - as stated it's a great concept but not a reliable source. Not sure why this is a sticking point for you, completely unrelated to the CFG issue. You rate wiki highly, I don't - let's leave this point behind.

I'm not saying i rate Wiki highly, i'm saying it's stupid to criticise a source that proves correct. It's always up to the scrutiny of the individual to make sure his sources are correct, not to act upon the reputation of the source nessecarily.

2) You said you weren't sure if the article was 'shitty' or 'outdated' when in fact it is neither. Also, frustratingly given how much you are writing on here, I can tell you haven't bothered to follow the correct link because it goes to Companies House.

Well, you tell me what link i should follow. Yes i followed the second link going to companies house and then i wouldn't have known which document out of the long list provided there to sellect for the numbers that the author presented. So yes sloppy he could aswell linked directly to the relevant document. So tell me, what link should i follow once i clicked that link of Companies house?

Even more frustratingly you are reading the wrong report for your last point. We are talking about CFG not Manchester City. That's literally the entire point of his article - that CFG has offloaded ~£100m to NYCFC and Melbourne City FC.

No thats not the point, i couldn't care less even if that were true and you still have to show me where it's proven i the numbers that this have been done. The article doesn't really pinpoint it nether rather than taking the same narrative held here that it "looks irregular".
However the real thread to the argument so far was that City's business model would be unsustainable. If however the group proves profitable as a whole even after having spend a net cost of 90 million to players also that year then i don't see any issue's of CFG. That a larger company would be moving costs about their devissions is something that happens often and hardly an issue as long as the company as a whole is viable.

 

[Denis_unwise]

I don’t doubt that Cruijff’s opinion was sought but he was not charged with the selection just consulted as a courtesy.

Cruyff was the club's former coach & revered in world football. I'd be inclined to believe that his opinion carried more weight than a money mans. You obviously believe it was Soriano as it fits the narrative you are trying to push.

They won the league in 99 he was appointed in 2003, 4 years no trophy, 3 years later they had 2 titles and a CL, exactly what I said.

You seem to be a tad confused. The point was that City fans believe revenues are high due to Soriano & what happened at Barca. Most opposition fans are arguing that cannot be true as the 2 are not comparable. Barca were already a huge club before he joined. They were starting to get back on their feet after a few barren years. The success they had on the pitch allowed Soriano to build revenues. It was not difficult to build revenues on the back of what happened at Barca in the prevailing years. Soriano had little input into the footballing side of the club though.

Well, you tell me what link i should follow. Yes i followed the second link going to companies house and then i wouldn't have known which document out of the long list provided there to sellect for the numbers that the author presented. So yes sloppy he could aswell linked directly to the relevant document. So tell me, what link should i follow once i clicked that link of Companies house?

You are continually ignoring links that are being posted instead of reading them to gain knowledge on the subject matter. This makes everything you say incoherent as you have no understanding of it. We are all for debating the issue with you but you are not coming back with anything of substance.

 

[LegendCantona7]

Soriano has been a revolution off the field for both Barcelona and Manchester City. I believe it was him who saw what the club was capable of at Barcelona, took a risk with Rijkaard and Pep. I always wanted Soriano to replace David Gill because his vision matched that of Uniteds. His plan was always long term and his ideas were an evolution in regards to how to run a football club.

Soriano did has the luxury of Cruyffs vision, which Cruyff implemented in the 70s. If Soriano did not have that, then his task on hand would have been more difficult.

 

[Gentleman Jim]

Cruyff was the club's former coach & revered in world football. I'd be inclined to believe that his opinion carried more weight than a money mans. You obviously believe it was Soriano as it fits the narrative you are trying to push.










=QUOTE]
Just as I predicted, you answer direct quotes of uncontested fact with your assumption based on nothing other than your opinion.

 

[BeforeKeanetherewasRobson]

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/sport/amp/football/45919720

He's finally made it. So much better than a statue.