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

[blueinsa]

I'm rather enjoying the too deliberate failure to mention that the dominant club in English football over the last three years has had to operate under unprecedented restrictions on investment, wages, transfers, squad size and sponsorship deals. It's the elephant in the room that all the media and pundits studiously skirt around and hope that, if it isn't mentioned, the Premier League competition won't, in any way, be diminished as a sporting competition.

Unfortunately for all concerned, and especially Chelsea who, if not spectacular, haven't been bad at all, everybody knows that this season's competition is tarnished and the Premier League will remain so until FFP is abolished.

Nail firmly on the head.

Some on here need to acknowledge it as well.

 

[SilverFox2]

Re NYT item regarding Etihad Airways.
The part I found interesting is how this airline has managed to out perform its competition.

Perhaps sponsoring City has helped to raise its profile somewhat.

 

[dasblues]

The part I found interesting is how this airline has managed to out perform its competition.

Perhaps sponsoring City has helped to raise its profile somewhat.

I think its also quite interesting to note the similarities between ourselves and Etihad, unprecedented government subsidies to establish them in a position of pre-eminance in the industry.

In the wider world of business this is perfectly acceptable ie within the law, though morally ambiguous

In the world of football they have set up protectionist laws to keep the established companies in their postition as market leaders

In business protectionism is frowned upon as it promotes complacency and stifles competition which reduces the overall quality of the product.

 

[Dodge]

Funny how our £400m 10 year Etihad deal (for shirt sponsorship, stadium and campus naming rights) was the subject of such scorn and accusations of financial doping, whereas Bayern's €900m 10-year deal with Adidas (for kit alone) barely raises an eyebrow. And it's a related party transaction (Adidas own 8.33% of Bayern).

Because nobody was REALLY sat there running market projections, people kicked off because Etihad are from the UAE and our owner is from the UAE and all Arabs are the same person therefore our owner must have paid for it. It was the only explanation to these simpletons.

Never really saw how much anti-Arab sentiment is out there until we got taken over

Similarly, Budweiser sponsor the FA Cup, crack on buddy..

Emirates?

Hmm..

 

[SilverFox2]

The part I found interesting is how this airline has managed to out perform its competition.

Perhaps sponsoring City has helped to raise its profile somewhat.

I think its also quite interesting to note the similarities between ourselves and Etihad, unprecedented government subsidies to establish them in a position of pre-eminance in the industry.

In the wider world of business this is perfectly acceptable ie within the law, though morally ambiguous

In the world of football they have set up protectionist laws to keep the established companies in their postition as market leaders

In business protectionism is frowned upon as it promotes complacency and stifles competition which reduces the overall quality of the product.

Sometimes even the UK government and our owner 'help' the same sector of industry. I refer of course to Banking where Sheik M. helped Barclays and taxpayers money saved several other banks.
We then fine them substantial amounts of money for libor rate fixing, cartel operations or even money laundering so very little in this world is seemingly fair.

 

[BlueBarratt]

Funny how our £400m 10 year Etihad deal (for shirt sponsorship, stadium and campus naming rights) was the subject of such scorn and accusations of financial doping, whereas Bayern's €900m 10-year deal with Adidas (for kit alone) barely raises an eyebrow. And it's a related party transaction (Adidas own 8.33% of Bayern).

Because nobody was REALLY sat there running market projections, people kicked off because Etihad are from the UAE and our owner is from the UAE and all Arabs are the same person therefore our owner must have paid for it. It was the only explanation to these simpletons.

Never really saw how much anti-Arab sentiment is out there until we got taken over

Similarly, Budweiser sponsor the FA Cup, crack on buddy..

Emirates?

Hmm..

I don't think this is a very good example to use, since people's problem with the Emirates sponsorship is that they are incorporating it into the name, so it's no longer just the FA Cup, it's the Emirates FA Cup.

It would be like us being called ADUGMCFC, which I am sure a lot of people would have a problem with. Equally, people would be up in arms if Mike Ashley tried to change Newcastle to Sports Direct Newcastle United. I am sure that if Budweiser had wanted to rename the FA Cup, people wouldn't have liked it, although I do think that the outrage would have been less.

In this case, I do agree with the underlying point that people have this inherent skepticism of non-western businessmen, and so they are subject to extra scrutiny by us westerners.

 

[PixieScott]

Ric wrote:
Funny how our £400m 10 year Etihad deal (for shirt sponsorship, stadium and campus naming rights) was the subject of such scorn and accusations of financial doping, whereas Bayern's €900m 10-year deal with Adidas (for kit alone) barely raises an eyebrow. And it's a related party transaction (Adidas own 8.33% of Bayern).

I think the issue isn't the amount but the valuation at the time the deal was struck. Bayern is a top 3 football powerhouse, whereas City wasn't a picture in the global football landscape. How can anyone argue that the deal at that point was not to ensure a sufficient credit line? PSG did the same but at a much grander scale and paid the price for it as well.

Contrary to what many presume here, commercial growth isn't exponential. One can take Real,Barcelona,Mufc and Bayern as benchmarks and realise that some of these teams have had success spanning 20-30 years and clubs that have had success for 5-10 years have practically matched 50-75% of their valued commercial income. It suggests that the crawl to commercial income parity if organic is slow. Unless Etihad/<or any Roman's company> come forward to invest a sizeable deal then while that would prop up the token value not necessarily actually make the club worth as much. A simple litmus test is that whether a non-related company would pay as much at that point in time as the related company is offering to. I think you'll agree there wasn't any bidding war for the sponsorship deal then.

The discernible benefit that Etihad have derived from the arrangement renders your précis of the motivation behind the deal to be hopelessly simplistic. For the same reasons that Sheikh Mansour bought City in 2008, Etihad will have recognised the benefit of being closely associated with a leading English football club in terms of global reach and exposure. The way that TV deals have developed in the last seven years suggests that vision was a supremely prescient one. Etihad's growth in the same period has been equally stellar. No coincidence.

In short, if you believe you're going to get significant benefit out of an arrangement, you are much less likely to scrutinise and take issue with the price. Etihad paid the price, because they knew it was a price worth paying to them; more especially if their money helped ensure a level of success that would further enhance their levels of reflected glory. A virtuous circle as far as they were concerned, no doubt.

That is what observers of this arrangement frequently and conspicuously fail to appreciate: Etihad were as much beneficiaries from this deal as City.

The term 'financial doping' in relation to the Etihad deal is uttered by those who are intellectually dishonest or commercially myopic. In Wenger's case it is doubtless the former, for most others I suspect it's the latter.

Yes, but that would hold if Etihad and CFG in principle weren't one and the same. I believe someone posted a link to the article to supplement the fact that the Etihad sponsorship was fronted by the government. That isn't a surprise since CFG and Etihad are children of the same parents. In this case the parents are the government and thus have limit-less funds to pump in either en devour and undercut competition by offering subsidized high quality product. Not arguing there is anything wrong with that, just saying to presume that Etihad had the brilliant foresight to invest in City is wishful thinking.

 

[SilverFox2]

I think the issue isn't the amount but the valuation at the time the deal was struck. Bayern is a top 3 football powerhouse, whereas City wasn't a picture in the global football landscape. How can anyone argue that the deal at that point was not to ensure a sufficient credit line? PSG did the same but at a much grander scale and paid the price for it as well.

Contrary to what many presume here, commercial growth isn't exponential. One can take Real,Barcelona,Mufc and Bayern as benchmarks and realise that some of these teams have had success spanning 20-30 years and clubs that have had success for 5-10 years have practically matched 50-75% of their valued commercial income. It suggests that the crawl to commercial income parity if organic is slow. Unless Etihad/<or any Roman's company> come forward to invest a sizeable deal then while that would prop up the token value not necessarily actually make the club worth as much. A simple litmus test is that whether a non-related company would pay as much at that point in time as the related company is offering to. I think you'll agree there wasn't any bidding war for the sponsorship deal then.

The discernible benefit that Etihad have derived from the arrangement renders your précis of the motivation behind the deal to be hopelessly simplistic. For the same reasons that Sheikh Mansour bought City in 2008, Etihad will have recognised the benefit of being closely associated with a leading English football club in terms of global reach and exposure. The way that TV deals have developed in the last seven years suggests that vision was a supremely prescient one. Etihad's growth in the same period has been equally stellar. No coincidence.

In short, if you believe you're going to get significant benefit out of an arrangement, you are much less likely to scrutinise and take issue with the price. Etihad paid the price, because they knew it was a price worth paying to them; more especially if their money helped ensure a level of success that would further enhance their levels of reflected glory. A virtuous circle as far as they were concerned, no doubt.

That is what observers of this arrangement frequently and conspicuously fail to appreciate: Etihad were as much beneficiaries from this deal as City.

The term 'financial doping' in relation to the Etihad deal is uttered by those who are intellectually dishonest or commercially myopic. In Wenger's case it is doubtless the former, for most others I suspect it's the latter.

Yes, but that would hold if Etihad and CFG in principle weren't one and the same. I believe someone posted a link to the article to supplement the fact that the Etihad sponsorship was fronted by the government. That isn't a surprise since CFG and Etihad are children of the same parents. In this case the parents are the government and thus have limit-less funds to pump in either en devour and undercut competition by offering subsidized high quality product. Not arguing there is anything wrong with that, just saying to presume that Etihad had the brilliant foresight to invest in City is wishful thinking.

As mentioned in a recent post Etihad were certainly friendly but FFP legal so that is not an issue but the article you refer to is well worth a read because it concerns the rise of Etihad Airways as a threat to other airlines so much so that they need to claim foul.

Perhaps claiming that some of their commercial success was down to shrewd sponsorship of City is not in the 'wishful thinking' category. After all thats why some of the USA based companies (eg Chevrolet) pay massive sums to have their name on MUFC shirts.
Why should Etihad not be capable anticipating the value in publicity to them that the massive investment in his business plan that our owner has brought ?

 

[PixieScott]

The discernible benefit that Etihad have derived from the arrangement renders your précis of the motivation behind the deal to be hopelessly simplistic. For the same reasons that Sheikh Mansour bought City in 2008, Etihad will have recognised the benefit of being closely associated with a leading English football club in terms of global reach and exposure. The way that TV deals have developed in the last seven years suggests that vision was a supremely prescient one. Etihad's growth in the same period has been equally stellar. No coincidence.

In short, if you believe you're going to get significant benefit out of an arrangement, you are much less likely to scrutinise and take issue with the price. Etihad paid the price, because they knew it was a price worth paying to them; more especially if their money helped ensure a level of success that would further enhance their levels of reflected glory. A virtuous circle as far as they were concerned, no doubt.

That is what observers of this arrangement frequently and conspicuously fail to appreciate: Etihad were as much beneficiaries from this deal as City.

The term 'financial doping' in relation to the Etihad deal is uttered by those who are intellectually dishonest or commercially myopic. In Wenger's case it is doubtless the former, for most others I suspect it's the latter.

Yes, but that would hold if Etihad and CFG in principle weren't one and the same. I believe someone posted a link to the article to supplement the fact that the Etihad sponsorship was fronted by the government. That isn't a surprise since CFG and Etihad are children of the same parents. In this case the parents are the government and thus have limit-less funds to pump in either en devour and undercut competition by offering subsidized high quality product. Not arguing there is anything wrong with that, just saying to presume that Etihad had the brilliant foresight to invest in City is wishful thinking.

As mentioned in a recent post Etihad were certainly friendly but FFP legal so that is not an issue but the article you refer to is well worth a read because it concerns the rise of Etihad Airways as a threat to other airlines so much so that they need to claim foul.

Perhaps claiming that some of their commercial success was down to shrewd sponsorship of City is not in the 'wishful thinking' category. After all thats why some of the USA based companies (eg Chevrolet) pay massive sums to have their name on MUFC shirts.
Why should Etihad not be capable anticipating the value in publicity to them that the massive investment in his business plan that our owner has brought ?

You are missing my point. Yes, having Etihad on City shirts did boost its brand in time but to have the name on shirts the owner didn't have to strike a deal. In essence the owner paid himself to place the name there with an eye on FFP. I don't blame them for that since what choice did they really have? Keeping an eye on FFP meant that the terms were far more beneficial to City than to Etihad is all I am saying.

 

[Damocles]

Yes, but that would hold if Etihad and CFG in principle weren't one and the same. I believe someone posted a link to the article to supplement the fact that the Etihad sponsorship was fronted by the government. That isn't a surprise since CFG and Etihad are children of the same parents. In this case the parents are the government and thus have limit-less funds to pump in either en devour and undercut competition by offering subsidized high quality product. Not arguing there is anything wrong with that, just saying to presume that Etihad had the brilliant foresight to invest in City is wishful thinking.

As mentioned in a recent post Etihad were certainly friendly but FFP legal so that is not an issue but the article you refer to is well worth a read because it concerns the rise of Etihad Airways as a threat to other airlines so much so that they need to claim foul.

Perhaps claiming that some of their commercial success was down to shrewd sponsorship of City is not in the 'wishful thinking' category. After all thats why some of the USA based companies (eg Chevrolet) pay massive sums to have their name on MUFC shirts.
Why should Etihad not be capable anticipating the value in publicity to them that the massive investment in his business plan that our owner has brought ?

You are missing my point. Yes, having Etihad on City shirts did boost its brand in time but to have the name on shirts the owner didn't have to strike a deal. In essence the owner paid himself to place the name there with an eye on FFP. I don't blame them for that since what choice did they really have? Keeping an eye on FFP meant that the terms were far more beneficial to City than to Etihad is all I am saying.

No he didn't. ALL ARABS ARE NOT THE SAME PERSON.