Manchester City: A Look at City’s Financial Figures

Manchester City Football Club has released its Annual Report, detailing the Club’s activities and achievements during the 2018-19 season. ​

Here at Bitter and Blue we value honesty and transparency and despite reports to the contrary City and their finances should be cut and dry.

So let’s take a look.

First, lets see what City Group won:

“It was a season which on the field, culminated in six trophies won across the senior men’s and women’s teams including the securing of an unprecedented sweep of all four men’s domestic titles, and off the field, saw the posting of record revenues of £535.2m - above the £500m mark for the second successive year. (Courtesy of mancity.com)”

The profits:

“The Club, which this year, entered its second decade under the ownership of His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, also reported a profit - of £10.1m - for the fifth consecutive year and a healthy wage/revenue ratio of 59%.”

In chart form:

Two observations can be leaned from the report.

1. City continue to be among one of the few self sustained clubs on the planet and for that we should be proud. It would seem thanks to recent investments, notably from Puma and Nissan, City will increase profit margin next year.

2. Criticism, while warranted, has to be substantiated. Many folks, notably on twitter, have accused City of fraudulent behavior and while Etihad’s sponsorship deal does deserve some closer looking at, to question the veracity of financial reports supposedly vetted by the FA and UEFA has to be a no go.

Listen, I’m open for more information, but attacking with out proof is not right.

Lastly, revenue has to be shown and City don’t just rely on home cooking. They have all kinds of sponsors as this tweet shows:

The Athletic, by way of Sam Lee, had a great article on City and likeability you can check out here.

And while City considering its ownership, will never be likeable, the article brought up one big point I want to tackle. Ownership. It’s one of the biggest stumbling blocks to City being a neutrals favorite. Claims that City have “bought the league” among many others ring loud throughout the internet. And while City fans know that is not the case, many brush over bigger offences by other clubs. See Liverpool hacking City’s football scouting system or even the FA’s huge abuse scandal.

The point is City are not a perfect club, but we owe it to the owners and other fans to support until something concrete is confirmed.

Now, to quote a famous American coach, We’re on to Chelsea.

CMON CITY!