City & FFP | 2020/21 Accounts released | Revenues of £569.8m, £2.4m profit (p 2395)

[fbloke]

I believe the £150m (although it could be a bit more) is the anticipated gross spend. I simply do not believe we would or could spend £150-170m net.

I've just been going through some figures for my KOTK article and I think I was wrong on this. I believe we'll be freeing up about £30m a year in amortisation alone, which equates to a potential gross spend of £150m. However, with the players that are expected to be sold, most have low book values, meaning getting even £15m for them gives us a good profit on sale. I reckon we could see a total profit on sale of around £60m. Even if you split that over 3 years, that's up to £100m we could possibly spend without affecting the bottom line. So it's entirely possible we could spend £250m gross and £160-170m net on 5 or 6 players.

That also assumes static commercial revenues (outside the TV deal)?

I think it's reasonable to assume somewhere in the region of £20m per year more from sponsorships as a base figure.

 

[Damanino]

But also maybe 35-40m extra income from CL wont be added if we fuck it up this last few games.

 

[BlueAnorak]

I believe the £150m (although it could be a bit more) is the anticipated gross spend. I simply do not believe we would or could spend £150-170m net.

I've just been going through some figures for my KOTK article and I think I was wrong on this. I believe we'll be freeing up about £30m a year in amortisation alone, which equates to a potential gross spend of £150m. However, with the players that are expected to be sold, most have low book values, meaning getting even £15m for them gives us a good profit on sale. I reckon we could see a total profit on sale of around £60m. Even if you split that over 3 years, that's up to £100m we could possibly spend without affecting the bottom line. So it's entirely possible we could spend £250m gross and £160-170m net on 5 or 6 players.

That's pretty much were I came from. Though I reckon the top limit is nearer 200 as:
1. Premier League FFP doesn't allow us to spend raised TV income on player salaries and only a new big deal before the end of the season would allow us to spend more on wages.
2. It will be difficult to buy more than 2 world class players in a window.
3. We will want to spend in subsequent transfer windows.

 

[FanchesterCity]

Here's a little ponderable...


We know there's a bit of a question mark over UEFA's sanction statement / document about the clause where City promise to significantly limit their spending for 2 season (and that this clause in particular does not have the usual 'the second year will be lifted' clause). So... when City say 'without restriction', might that be a political way of saying 'without any restriction on what we'd intended to spend anyway', rather than a genuine 'no restriction'.

So let's say last years cap was 60m (a figure UEFA never revealed but City did), and this year's was (say) 100m. City might legitimately use the phrase 'without restriction' if they'd only intended a net spend on 90m anyway. But if they now discover they need to spend more, then they might still be hindered by a limit?

It really is just a theoretical question, but it's based on the ambiguity of the transfer spend clause of UEFA's document, so not entirely without foundation.

I'm sure City would have envisaged a need to spend again this summer, especially after last year's restrictions, The question is 'how much more' did they anticipate prior to this season's collapse?

 

[Marvin]

This always happens. Bad results, and within 72 hours we've got the old transfer warchest wheeled out.

We might have money, but the top players will look at City and a move is just not credible.

I don't think anyone falls for this old diversionary tactic anymore.

 

[Sir peace frog]

love this thread ,its full of very clever people juggling figures and terms to tell us what's what ,I read it ,haven't got a clue what people are on about ,then try and explain to my rag mates how fucking brilliant we are with money :) and how much well have to spend and how ffp is wrong ,I must sound like a jibbering idiot :)

 

[FanchesterCity]

This always happens. Bad results, and within 72 hours we've got the old transfer warchest wheeled out.

We might have money, but the top players will look at City and a move is just not credible.

I don't think anyone falls for this old diversionary tactic anymore.

Well, I've raised this issue in the past.
Having the money we have is great, but it was supposed to buy us the chance to compete (which it has done), not fund us as a Harlem Globetrotter type team. We actually have to now start being competitive in terms of tactics / effort / ethos.
I think there's a world of difference in us spending to stay strong, and spending to dig our way out of self made troubles.

The 'plan', really should be 2-3 players each summer to refresh and top up a great squad, whilst letting the same number leave. Sometimes, the players leaving might not be the weakest links, (e.g we could still theoretically replace Aguero with Messi, as good as Aguero is).

That 'plan' seems to have gone awry as the new recruits haven't progressed us. Have Garcia and Fernando really moved on us on De Jong? Has Savic / Nastastic /MDM / Mangala really moved us on from Lescott? Has Navas really moved us on from Johnson? etc
Hand on heart I really can't they've noticeably improved us. Meanwhile the rest of the squad has aged, leaving us in the current mess we're in.

I accept we are now going to have to spend big again, but I'm really not convinced this is quite how City wanted it to work. No doubt we'll have built in lots of contingency for this sort of situation, but we do need to resolve the core issue... poor recruitment.

 

[FanchesterCity]

love this thread ,its full of very clever people juggling figures and terms to tell us what's what ,I read it ,haven't got a clue what people are on about ,then try and explain to my rag mates how fucking brilliant we are with money :) and how much well have to spend and how ffp is wrong ,I must sound like a jibbering idiot :)

You're wasting your time trying to explain it to most anti-City people though. The one comeback they always have is about Etihad being a ruse for 'self sponsorship', and a number of other sponsors being from the middle east too. Since our owners have influence there, you'd expect us to win sponsors from there (just like United and Liverpool are laden with American sponsors), but it's always going to be an accusation we suffer from.
If we can win a huge European / American / Asian sponsor, then it'll help kill that niggle off. I know we already have such sponsors but they aren't really headline sponsors.

Although if / when they DO question the Etihad deal, you must mention to them that UEFA investigated it and found it to be entirely non-related party. And few could disagree that UEFA were sniffing for anything they could use against us. They DID find the Paris St. Germaine sponsorship deal to be a fiddle though, and halved it.

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

City's reaction to last May's sanctions was angry because the club felt they were the result of malpractice on UEFA's part, serious consideration was given to pursuing " its case and present its position through every avenue of recourse" and that such action was not taken only because of the club's evolving financial status and the damaging effect further sanctions might have before court action overturned them. My view is that City are pretty clear that there will be no further trouble with UEFA and that financing deals to bring in new players will not pose any problems at all. PB's estimates of global expenditure potential (don't you just love that phrase?!) may well be accurate and could even be a touch shy of the mark.

The panic at the moment is that we won't be able to attract players of the required quality in sufficient numbers if we fail to qualify for the champions league. I can't agree. Last year Manchester United showed that the old saying still holds good; money talks and more money talks louder still. It is something we have already proved ourselves; in 2009-10 we finished fifth, the pundits screamed gleefully that the Sheikh's project had ended in failure and that summer Ya Ya, Merlin, Boateng, Milner and Balotelli signed and Edin arrived in January. The good times began rolling, and City hadn't overpaid for any of these players.

Now, whatever happens in the league by the end of the season City are still a mighty attractive destination for players. Our record on the pitch has been impressive and off the pitch everything at the club points to a very bright future. There are very few clubs which have more to offer than City and while teams may only put eleven players on the pitch at the same time we will find no competition for some of the players we want. We can't buy Ronaldo or Messi but neither can anyone else. We'll compete strongly for anyone else though.

 

[FanchesterCity]

City's reaction to last May's sanctions was angry because the club felt they were the result of malpractice on UEFA's part, serious consideration was given to pursuing " its case and present its position through every avenue of recourse" and that such action was not taken only because of the club's evolving financial status and the damaging effect further sanctions might have before court action overturned them. My view is that City are pretty clear that there will be no further trouble with UEFA and that financing deals to bring in new players will not pose any problems at all. PB's estimates of global expenditure potential (don't you just love that phrase?!) may well be accurate and could even be a touch shy of the mark.

The panic at the moment is that we won't be able to attract players of the required quality in sufficient numbers if we fail to qualify for the champions league. I can't agree. Last year Manchester United showed that the old saying still holds good; money talks and more money talks louder still. It is something we have already proved ourselves; in 2009-10 we finished fifth, the pundits screamed gleefully that the Sheikh's project had ended in failure and that summer Ya Ya, Merlin, Boateng, Milner and Balotelli signed and Edin arrived in January. The good times began rolling, and City hadn't overpaid for any of these players.

Now, whatever happens in the league by the end of the season City are still a mighty attractive destination for players. Our record on the pitch has been impressive and off the pitch everything at the club points to a very bright future. There are very few clubs which have more to offer than City and while teams may only put eleven players on the pitch at the same time we will find no competition for some of the players we want. We can't buy Ronaldo or Messi but neither can anyone else. We'll compete strongly for anyone else though.

The lion's share of elite players are at Bayern, Real, or Barca, and City then compete at the next tier down like all the rest of our rivals (United, Chelsea, PSG, Juve et al). There are pros and cons to each club in that group... kudos / location / money / likelihood of trophies, but I don't think there's much to separate them that a persuasive manager / recruitment team couldn't overcome.

But attracting players isn't the problem, it's making sure that a high percentage of the ones we do attract work out well for us, and that's just not happening at the moment. Arguably Fernandinho and MDM were the last two signings to work out reasonably well, but neither could be considered a real step forward. Bony is too soon to judge. Jovetic is a 'could have been', Mangala is a 'might go on to be', Navas is a 'not looking like it', Fornando is a 'not good enough'. No matter how much we spend, if the money's going to spent unwisely, we'll struggle as a result.
Every team buys duds. We will have our share. We just have to make sure the percentage of duds is relatively low. Right now, it's far too high.