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

[Damocles]

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

 

[chris85mcfc]

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

And Adidas are German, so surely their deal should have had been met with the same scrutinisation as ours.

 

[Damocles]

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

And Adidas are German, so surely their deal should have had been met with the same scrutinisation as ours.

Nope. You see Germany are a Western European nation so two different companies can come that that place without having to be in a form of collusion. In fact, one company can actually own 10% of the other company and still are not in collusion.

However as Aabar are from the Abu Dhabi and our owner is the third most important man in Abu Dhabi then this means that they are absolutely definitely in collusion. Because all those Arabs are the same unlike the Western European master race.

 

[Damanino]

I hope if we hear about some new sponsors next few months one of them will be Nike improving the kit deal.

Maybe also Etihad does something too, as Chelsea gonna have some Japanese company paying 40m for them per season for 5 years as the shirt logo sponsor.
Chevrolet also giving nearly 50m for United per year.

Given we agreed to FPP we now have to be part of this crazy income pushing contest too, and our closest rivals are certainly not keeping back in terms of getting fantastic deals for serious amounts.

I think our Chairman inferred that this year will be one to concentrate on 'Commercial matters'.
They don't seem to have done too badly up to now in developing sponsors so I think we can safely leave the business side of it to them. Hopefully our dismal impact on the PL and CL this year will not detract from our financial attraction to sponsors, if any negativity reported expect rapid changes to rectify the situation.

The pressure is now on the playing side of the business, as an investment group with its CFG plan developing I wonder if emergency funds will be diverted to new player purchases or will they stick by the original maintenance only changes already budgeted for.
Despite their dismal performances since Xmas CL is still a probability so maybe the 5 year plan (or its ADUG equivalent) will allow for this.

Yep CFG should get new sponsors as well, and surely some of those sums would turn up at City account as well. Given Melbourne and New York teams are both pretty mediocre in their league, it might take a few more years.

Btw Nike wanted to renew their deal with United but said Adidas offer was too much and they didnt match it. Thats 75m/year, 10 year long deal, so I imagine Nike offered them around 50-60m maybe.
Compared to that they improved our deal recently from 6m to 12m our best case scenario is imo around 25-30m. Even this is maybe too optimistic. Probably 20-25.

With United's new deals, they will be at least 50-60m over anybody else in England just from the shirt money, not mentioning their lot bigger matchday incomes.

Also wonder do we have anything else lined up for naming rights from Etihad Campus? The bridge sponsor is given, but maybe every little building could have a sponsor. Or do those ones already part of the incomes given its up and running?

 

[thehydetiger]

The footballing elite have proved they don't like anyone crashing their party and until there's a Bosman like court case stopping them from punishing other clubs there's not a lot anyone can do.The drawbridge has been pulled up and we got in just at the last minute but it's very unlikely that the ones on the outside will ever get in under the rules we have now.

 

[unexpected item]

The footballing elite have proved they don't like anyone crashing their party and until there's a Bosman like court case stopping them from punishing other clubs there's not a lot anyone can do.The drawbridge has been pulled up and we got in just at the last minute but it's very unlikely that the ones on the outside will ever get in under the rules we have now.

I don't think they have finished with us yet.

David Gill gone to FIFA, so watch out for the spotlight being trained on individuals owning clubs in different parts of the world.

Also, the proposed England home grown rule changes. Under them, a player has to have been at a club 3 years before his 18th birthday, thereby ruling out the registration of foreign kids as FIFA say they cannot cross borders to join clubs if they're under 16 (unless their parents move country for non footballing reasons). And no doubt the rule will be retrospective, so our promising foreign lads we have now, will no longer be classed as home grown.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

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

And Adidas are German, so surely their deal should have had been met with the same scrutinisation as ours.

Nope. You see Germany are a Western European nation so two different companies can come that that place without having to be in a form of collusion. In fact, one company can actually own 10% of the other company and still are not in collusion.

However as Aabar are from the Abu Dhabi and our owner is the third most important man in Abu Dhabi then this means that they are absolutely definitely in collusion. Because all those Arabs are the same unlike the Western European master race.

In summary: most of the Adidas board don't have brown skin.

 

[City Raider]

Not the best time to be renegotiating deals :)

A further 'unforseen' consequence of FFPR. Periods without success make it harder to bring in the big sponsorship deals thus further protecting the elite

 

[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.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

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.