Have added it to recent discussion thread about the false figures.
Varchester City 18/19 discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
Have added it to recent discussion thread about the false figures.
I travel over from Dublin a few times a year, always struggle to get two tickets together. In fact, it's easier for me go get a pair of tickets together at Anfield or Old Trafford than it is the Etihad.
I'm calling BS on this.Their revenues are sky rocketing yet they can't fill their ground and they have nothing like the international footprint of the other big clubs.
Hmmmmm...
I travel over from Dublin a few times a year, always struggle to get two tickets together. In fact, it's easier for me go get a pair of tickets together at Anfield or Old Trafford than it is the Etihad. I know its true too cos i went to anfield loads in the 80s and was a regular at old trafford until about 2013. Always been a city fan though. Always.
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Its funny when I googled 'financial doping' for images.... the half of the images were of Manchester City!! Go see for yourself.
Haha. It's not even doping though is it. It's Emirati companies looking to gain favour with the royal family or join the national PR project paying way over the odds. They're not even breaking any rules.Its funny when I googled 'financial doping' for images.... the half of the images were of Manchester City!! Go see for yourself.
Strange they're making all that money yet couldn't spend the extra money to bring in Jorginho faster.
Chelsea are more successful yet they don't see increases like this.
Makes you think...
Those revenue figures look a bit high to me. Who are the companies paying that kind of money?
Totally agree, love watching him play. Glides around the pitch and never loses the ball, always plays forward passes. And more recently he’s become a real fighter in the pitch too. Super consistent too, never get less than an 8/10 from him and have done for so many seasons
He’s the player from the Berties I would have wanted the most over the last 8 years, no doubt.
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Emirati conpanies. Think City have got a partners list on their website and it's mainly Emirati companies.
City have done very off the field, fair play. But the stats posted the other day is close to that as Uniteds, Barca, Real and Bayern have reported all after years of success. In terms of commercial revenue some of these deals are triple to what Liverpool and Arsenal get. Off the field they're both bigger brands then City. I'd argue Chelsea are a bigger global brand and can't even come close to City.
It’s obvious that City are going over market value with their commercial deals. Since they are owned by a sovereign fund all the fund has to do is make its other companies pay large sponsorship fees which wouldn’t be paid to other non related clubs. It’s artificial and inflated just like everything else about City.
You should have a look at that page... I'll elaborate as I did.
Global Partners
4 companies form that region.. Etisalat, Etihad, Aabar and Visit Abu Dhabi.
Then its Nike, Nissan, Nexen Tire, SAP, Marathon Bet, Wix, Hays, Gatorade, QNet, Tinder, Tecno, Ubtech, Xyslem, Mundipharma, EA Sports, Avatrade, Wega, DSquared (the ones responsible for our players looking like idiots), Eaton, SeatGeek.
Regional Partners..
First Gulf Bank and the ironically named Citi.
PZ Cussons, Healthpoint, Tecate, SHB Bank, Pak Lighting, Khmer Beverages, Heineken, Nexon, Wolf Blass,
So that's a grand total of 6 Emirati sponsors of a total 35. I don't know your definition of mainly but that wouldn't be mine.
Given City's attitude to attendance reporting, perhaps we should take that list with a pinch of salt eh?
Seriously, if City have signed up all those new partners over the past few months, good for them. Would imagine it's the Emirati companies that are paying the platinum-level prices though.
Given City's attitude to attendance reporting, perhaps we should take that list with a pinch of salt eh?
Seriously, if City have signed up all those new partners over the past few months, good for them. Would imagine it's the Emirati companies that are paying the platinum-level prices though.
Its been proven a milliion times City report attendances the same way as most clubs, on tickets sold so I dunno how what they do is any different in that regard either.
They are not for the last few months, most are there for at least a couple of years.
How much they are paying in comparison to the Emirati is a much more interesting discussion but outside of the Etihad deal and our shirt sponsoership deal I have zero clue tbh... Would be interesting to see an exact breakdown. If I had to take a guess I'd say maybe half of our £230m commercial income given the Etihad deal is about £70m or something now.
Yeah this is what makes me cynical.
We haven't heard anything about the value of these new sponsorship deals, apart from the kit deal. Yet City are always delighted to promote themselves and you'd have thought they'd trumpet the value of these deals if they were substantial - particularly as it would support the 'power shift in Manchester' narrative.
My guess would that be that the Emirati companies still dominate the commercial revenues, alongside the kit manufacturer and shirt sponsors. The myriad smaller deals which have been signed in recent months will probably be low in value, designed to spread the idea that City are open for business and building their own network of partners a la United.
https://amp.theguardian.com/footbal...=Share_iOSApp_Other&__twitter_impression=true
If City are making so much cash why has Mansour put another £58 Mill in this year. It makes no sense. Now i will admit i only have C grade GCSE in Maths & Business Studies. As i understand it, if i buy something for £58 Mill & sell it for £10 Mill surely that's a £48 Mill loss. The statement in the last paragraph is also telling ''Manchester City football club is reliant on its ultimate parent undertaking, Abu Dhabi United Group Investment and Development Ltd, for its continued financial support.''
If City are making so much cash why has Mansour put another £58 Mill in this year. It makes no sense. Now i will admit i only have C grade GCSE in Maths & Business Studies. As i understand it, if i buy something for £58 Mill & sell it for £10 Mill surely that's a £48 Mill loss. The statement in the last paragraph is also telling ''Manchester City football club is reliant on its ultimate parent undertaking, Abu Dhabi United Group Investment and Development Ltd, for its continued financial support.''
Alright smart-arse, way to make the rest of us feel bad.
A post I made several months ago:
Basically the reported figures for all their non-related commercial deals are tiny in comparison to their overall commercial declared revenue.
There is also a strange absence of their supposed large deals having figures reported on them. Whereas all other clubs with large, legitimate commercial deals shout them to the rafters in terms of value (Nike, Adidas, Yokahama, New Balance, Chevrolet, Emirates, Standard Chartered, Aon etc), City on the other hand keep them under wraps.
Basically they don't want it to be announced that Etisalat, Aabara, FGB, SHB, Citi, TCAAD, Etihad etc are paying £25+m each annually, as then other clubs would put a lot more pressure on the governing body to reduce this for FFP calculations.
the thing is with share capital you get your money back over time, the value of the investment that Mansour has put in has grown by about 50%, so he's probably not losing anything. Why he put it in to purchase Laporte I don't know, someone with more business savvy than us will know but Swiss Ramble didn't seem to think it was much of a point expanding on so I think it's pretty common.
Nissan is £20m, Nike is actually £18m so thats £38m of 232 right there. £7m for the Nexen Tyre and we are talking £45m of £232. That puts us at £187m outside of those deals.
Etihad is £80m so that means City take in approx £107m outside of these 4 deals in total.
So we have 5 more Emirati sponsors and 30 more non Emirati. You genuinely think its £125m from the 5 Emirati sponsors and we pay the others a combined total of approx £25m?
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Etihad is reportedly at around £65m (£45m shirt deal and £20m naming rights). Let's say the £18m from Nike and the £20m are added to that you're at £103m/£232m. I absolutely believe that at least £90m of that revenue is split between the remaining 5 or so related companies. So conservatively say £155m split between 6 (hence my c.£25m ea).
You'd then have say the remaining c. £40m will be split into maybe 15-20 deals at £1-2m and a couple at £3-5m (along eith a sleeve sponsor also at £7-8m).
but the accounts are signed off by an independent UEFA auditor, won't they see the values? you're just plucking figures out of the air, commercial income is £232m, which is £45m for shirt £10m of Nexen for the sleeve, £20m off Nissan, £20m off Nike (reportedly going upto £50m with Puma) £20m naming rights on the stadium, £10m from Amazon which is £125m so there are 5 partners there, the other 30 just have to average £3m each and I'd imagine the likes of SAP, Marathonbet etc are paying more than that
Not sure why you even bother tbh, seems like a waste of time.
Always found it comical that United fans think it's acceptable to exploit markets like Asia for income when the EPL took off to make them the dominant force in England and monopolised the league but having a foreign owner put money into a club is blasphemy. Also totally ignorant of their own history when United need 'outside investment' to keep the club afloat years ago etc...
I tought Etihad was renegotiated towards £80m for so at £65m that means less from Emirati sources surely...
It makes good discussion and gets me through my day at work. As long as its civil I quite enjoy these debates tbh.
As per my original post several months ago... Uefa don't have the teeth to question ever single deal to the nearest few £m. That's why City were much smarter than PSG who just publicly and flagrantly reported one huge deal that was easy to debunk.
City lawyers would state "if United can have a deal with Chevrolet worth £57m, why can't Etihad be worth the same". They would tie themselves into absolute knots trying to justify what City could reasonable report as fair revenue.
For my part though I'm glad City got around the rules... FFP is a joke and the investment in City has been fantastic for the PL.
In truth by £25m each I should have been clearer in saying "an average of £25m each". So c. £150m divided around 6 ways.
On the contrary, I think UEFA would love to do over City for some of the deals, they even moved the goalposts so we went from being within FPP guidelines to failing them. I'd love to know how much the deals are worth, really think things like this are transparent for all businesses
Fair enough but I'd imagine given the sheer number, that if Etihad is £65m then we'd be topping out at about £100-£120m from Emirati sources, which is pretty much around the 50% of our total, so approx the figure I stated earlier.
£150m is I suppose close on my figures, but I think £85m for the other 5 is a bit high personally. That would mean outside of the 3 main non-Emirati sponsors we're taking in at most 30-40m from our other global/regional partners.
I think given my estimates and I'm no expert its much more likely we're getting maybe 65 + 5 * 10 to make £120m (so a mean of around £20m), add in £45m for our other 3 top global sponsors and that leaves maybe 2-3m a piece for the others which is probably a more balanced estimate given what other clubs of our current stature receive.
We'll never know without exact numbers but I imagine with your figures UEFA and the PL's financial fair play in particular would be all over us as opposed to their current attitude of City are fine for FFP, having seen the books.
If it were simple Uefa would take it on. But any decision they make would be easily challengeable by City's legal team.
Uefa feel Aabar can't sponsor City for £20m... Why can Aon sponsor United for £25m? United are more attractive to companies from a value point of view... It's arguable City are more valuable from a "growth" point of view for companies that want to align themselves with their rags to riches "story". Bayern can be sponsored for £xm in a non-competitive league, surely City can match them in a competitive one. All bullshit but very much arguable nontheless.
The transparancy is already pretty much a thing for other clubs. In our annual accounts we brag about a $75m deal with Chevrolet or a £750m deal with Adidas. The same goes for Chelsea, Liverpool etc... Obviously as this increases the media coverages, commercial interest and club value.
City are different in that they keep all their deal values under wraps (as much as is possible), which is because all press is bad press for them.
In truth we're not miles apart £120m vs £150m and again I'm delighted they've managed to game the system as it's created a much better league with much greater competition which benefits everyone.
I think the City fans who believe every deal they have is achievable on the open market are the ones that frustrate me. No one cares that you've been smart enough to conquer what is and was a rigged system - you've won so why deny that you've fought fire with fire.
I far from think every deal was achievable and without a doubt I would say the original Etihad deal was certainly over the top. But I think today we command fair money and deals on a par with the top clubs simply because we are probably the most televised team in England over the last few years given we are the only one who featured consistently in the CL with everyone else missing out here and there.
My issue is when people say we couldn't get for example a replacement for the Etihad deal does the Sheikh was away now and I completely disagree I imagine there will be a ton of offers lining up to take it. Are we manipulating FFP? Absolutely, are we doing anything illegal to do it? Not a thing. As you said we're not cheating or breaking the rules, in fact Uefa moved the goal posts last second when we did (not because they hate City but because they wanted their share of our money.)
Some amount of pseudo intellectual spoofing in here. Almost to a man, nobody can sit and deconstruct citys finances with a degree of accuracy. The amount of backhanding and loopholing causes the brightest minds in the business heads to spin, no amount of half bit online research will shed light on the discussion in a true sense.
From a footballing point of view what matters to many is that city were absolute rubbish, got bankrolled by a very dodgy country who im sure color their dirty deals in nice colors, and bought their way to the top of the game in england, failing to pick up a single less in class along the way. When they have their financed champions league (inevitable and guaranteed) i imagine many will say, was it worth it? Many wont, but the true sports fans will and will remember when hard fought success to a lower level was sweeter. But the real winners will be dubai
From a footballing point of view what matters to many is that city were absolute rubbish, got bankrolled by a very dodgy country who im sure color their dirty deals in nice colors, and bought their way to the top of the game in england, failing to pick up a single less in class along the way. When they have their financed champions league (inevitable and guaranteed) i imagine many will say, was it worth it? Many wont, but the true sports fans will and will remember when hard fought success to a lower level was sweeter. But the real winners will be dubai
A slightly naive view on my opinion. It takes decades to build the kind of commercial reputation that United, Real, Barcelona & Bayern enjoy; you don't just get within spitting distance at £232m from £58m in seven years. From an open market point of view City would need decades of success to get there. As it stands City are no more televised now than Arsenal were in the early 00's. You could argue the commercial boom accelerated after that period but the clubs at the forefront were bound to be the biggest beneficiaries all things equal.
It depends what you mean by a "replacement". Obviously there wouldn't be a queue of companies willing to pay £65-80m a season to sponsor City and their stadium. As with most auctions... Everyone is interested at £1, the interest disappears as the price increases. Judging by other deals I'd imagine the naming rights would be £5-7m a season and the shirt deal would be £35m... So maybe £42m.
In terms of "illegal" I think it depends on your interpretation of the rules. If you're looking at the spirit of the rules, City are clearly in breach. However just like tax avoidance... if catching everyone technically in breach of the rules is too impractical or costly to enforce then you go after the low hanging fruit (PSG) which hopefully sends some kind of message to the others.
By years ago do you mean, like, 80 years ago? Because that's not happened in the modern era. Every club's gone through about 10 cycles of success and failure since United had significant outside investment. Since we had a major external backer, we've survived the ground being bombed and practically the entire first team being killed in a plane crash.
Also, I don't see how going out and earning your own money can be equated to winning the lottery. I'm sure others will struggle with that one as well. How can you seriously say United were lucky for spotting a market opportunity? By your logic any successful business is lucky.