Etihad Campus, Stadium and Collar Site Development Thread

[Danamy]

Re: Etihad Campus, Stadium Development and Collar Site (cont

We aren't talking about the benefits: they are obvious. We are talking about what sort of Return on Investment we can acually expect by taking this route.

The Barca Academy's yearly budget is about €10m and one I presume we'll be in the same area as.

Let's call it the £10m a year that you did earlier which is 20% highest than theirs and a decent estimate. We'll call the construction a £150m expenditure.

Unless we produce the best player in the world ever and sell him, we're almost certainly not going to get a ROI any time in the next 20 years.

You appear to be be only one getting it here, although I have no idea about the figures. Obviously there may be some intangible benefits, like persuading players to come who might not otherwise, especially young ones. But otherwise it's a massive spend. I'm not accusing the club of going into it blindly: of course they won't be. But it's an extremely bold investment which requires an enormous return to make it worthwhile; short, medium and long term.

This is not about whether it's a desirable thing to do this. Of course it is, and of course it will improve the club. But this thing has ultimately been done to pay for itself and then turn a profit, like all Abu Dhabi investments. Otherwise it's a waste of money.

I understand that city's profile mirrors Abu Dhabi, and that (probably combined with an element of it being a vanity/fun project) is why they accept the business running at an irrecuperable cumulative loss. But the club is clearly gunning like mad to at least get close to or into the black.

This has to be a risky way to try to achieve that. The good news, I suppose, is that if/when there are teething troubles (just like with the building of the football club) the well won't run dry. Because Sale Sharks or Stockport County aren't going to be buying this off us.

It's going to be intriguing to see how this works in reality.

Are you also taking into account the potential savings on not having to go in to the transfer market every window spending in the region of £30 mill + if we're producing through the academy.

I'm seeing it as a potential cash cow with the added luxury of us being able to pick the best fruit from the tree.

 

[daztrueblue91]

Re: Etihad Campus, Stadium Development and Collar Site (cont

We aren't talking about the benefits: they are obvious. We are talking about what sort of Return on Investment we can acually expect by taking this route.

The Barca Academy's yearly budget is about €10m and one I presume we'll be in the same area as.

Let's call it the £10m a year that you did earlier which is 20% highest than theirs and a decent estimate. We'll call the construction a £150m expenditure.

Unless we produce the best player in the world ever and sell him, we're almost certainly not going to get a ROI any time in the next 20 years.

You appear to be be only one getting it here, although I have no idea about the figures. Obviously there may be some intangible benefits, like persuading players to come who might not otherwise, especially young ones. But otherwise it's a massive spend. I'm not accusing the club of going into it blindly: of course they won't be. But it's an extremely bold investment which requires an enormous return to make it worthwhile; short, medium and long term.

This is not about whether it's a desirable thing to do this. Of course it is, and of course it will improve the club. But this thing has ultimately been done to pay for itself and then turn a profit, like all Abu Dhabi investments. Otherwise it's a waste of money.

I understand that city's profile mirrors Abu Dhabi, and that (probably combined with an element of it being a vanity/fun project) is why they accept the business running at an irrecuperable cumulative loss. But the club is clearly gunning like mad to at least get close to or into the black.

This has to be a risky way to try to achieve that. The good news, I suppose, is that if/when there are teething troubles (just like with the building of the football club) the well won't run dry. Because Sale Sharks or Stockport County aren't going to be buying this off us.

It's going to be intriguing to see how this works in reality.

Feel free to correct me if I have misunderstood.

But for example, say if the club has an annual £50 million put away for transfers each season and we only spend £20 million in the windows due to having a few youth players being promoted from our academy. Will the savings from the transfer window count as a return on investment?

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Etihad Campus, Stadium Development and Collar Site (continue

The Barca Academy's yearly budget is about €10m and one I presume we'll be in the same area as.

Let's call it the £10m a year that you did earlier which is 20% highest than theirs and a decent estimate. We'll call the construction a £150m expenditure.

Unless we produce the best player in the world ever and sell him, we're almost certainly not going to get a ROI any time in the next 20 years.

You appear to be be only one getting it here, although I have no idea about the figures. Obviously there may be some intangible benefits, like persuading players to come who might not otherwise, especially young ones. But otherwise it's a massive spend. I'm not accusing the club of going into it blindly: of course they won't be. But it's an extremely bold investment which requires an enormous return to make it worthwhile; short, medium and long term.

This is not about whether it's a desirable thing to do this. Of course it is, and of course it will improve the club. But this thing has ultimately been done to pay for itself and then turn a profit, like all Abu Dhabi investments. Otherwise it's a waste of money.

I understand that city's profile mirrors Abu Dhabi, and that (probably combined with an element of it being a vanity/fun project) is why they accept the business running at an irrecuperable cumulative loss. But the club is clearly gunning like mad to at least get close to or into the black.

This has to be a risky way to try to achieve that. The good news, I suppose, is that if/when there are teething troubles (just like with the building of the football club) the well won't run dry. Because Sale Sharks or Stockport County aren't going to be buying this off us.

It's going to be intriguing to see how this works in reality.

Feel free to correct me if I have misunderstood.

But for example, say if the club has an annual £50 million put away for transfers each season and we only spend £20 million in the windows due to having a few youth players being promoted from our academy. Will the savings from the transfer window count as a return on investment?

Of course that's a return on the investment, and that's obviously the intention, Along with selling on some of those who don't make it

But with the costs involved it's going to have to produce a lot of extremely good players to make the investment worthwhile. That's the point.

Every club in the world makes big noises about producing their own stars. But it's a lot easier to say than to actually do.

 

[BlueAnorak]

Re: Etihad Campus, Stadium Development and Collar Site (cont

Look how much money Chelsea are making at the moment from their academy. £10-15m a season.
Every little helps.

 

[FantasyIreland]

Re: Etihad Campus, Stadium Development and Collar Site (cont

Every club in the world makes big noises about producing their own stars. But it's a lot easier to say than to actually do.

And on that note.......

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2717240/Patrick-Vieira-building-bright-future-Manchester-City-core-group-English-players.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... paign=1490</a>

 

[Danamy]

Re: Etihad Campus, Stadium Development and Collar Site (cont

Every club in the world makes big noises about producing their own stars. But it's a lot easier to say than to actually do.

And on that note.......

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2717240/Patrick-Vieira-building-bright-future-Manchester-City-core-group-English-players.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... paign=1490</a>

Nice timing on a great thread

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Re: Etihad Campus, Stadium Development and Collar Site (cont

Every club in the world makes big noises about producing their own stars. But it's a lot easier to say than to actually do.

And on that note.......

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2717240/Patrick-Vieira-building-bright-future-Manchester-City-core-group-English-players.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... paign=1490</a>

Cheers FI. A good read. And Vieira himself illustrates the point I'm making simply and clearly:

‘The numbers will not lie,’ Vieira concedes, puffing out his cheeks. ‘We have to make a report in 10 years on how many players are in the first team. Then we can say we did it right or we did it wrong.’

Good PR too. Vicky Kloss seems to be doing well at the moment. There was a good article in another paper about our work with fans in the USA the other day.

 

[FanchesterCity]

Re: Etihad Campus, Stadium Development and Collar Site (cont

The Barca Academy's yearly budget is about €10m and one I presume we'll be in the same area as.

Let's call it the £10m a year that you did earlier which is 20% highest than theirs and a decent estimate. We'll call the construction a £150m expenditure.

Unless we produce the best player in the world ever and sell him, we're almost certainly not going to get a ROI any time in the next 20 years.

You appear to be be only one getting it here, although I have no idea about the figures. Obviously there may be some intangible benefits, like persuading players to come who might not otherwise, especially young ones. But otherwise it's a massive spend. I'm not accusing the club of going into it blindly: of course they won't be. But it's an extremely bold investment which requires an enormous return to make it worthwhile; short, medium and long term.

This is not about whether it's a desirable thing to do this. Of course it is, and of course it will improve the club. But this thing has ultimately been done to pay for itself and then turn a profit, like all Abu Dhabi investments. Otherwise it's a waste of money.

I understand that city's profile mirrors Abu Dhabi, and that (probably combined with an element of it being a vanity/fun project) is why they accept the business running at an irrecuperable cumulative loss. But the club is clearly gunning like mad to at least get close to or into the black.

This has to be a risky way to try to achieve that. The good news, I suppose, is that if/when there are teething troubles (just like with the building of the football club) the well won't run dry. Because Sale Sharks or Stockport County aren't going to be buying this off us.

It's going to be intriguing to see how this works in reality.

Feel free to correct me if I have misunderstood.

But for example, say if the club has an annual £50 million put away for transfers each season and we only spend £20 million in the windows due to having a few youth players being promoted from our academy. Will the savings from the transfer window count as a return on investment?

A saving is still a return on investment. However, I think it's massively unrealistic to expect 20 million quid of talent to come through to the first team year on year. It just won't happen.
What is LIKELY to happen is that there will be lots of 'good' players leaving the academy which we will sell. For all intents and purposes, call it a player factory. If we have 20 players in the academy and we sell each for 500K, that's 10 million a year.

IF (big if) we spot a real talent, then great, we'll keep him and potentially guide him into the first team, where, even if he fails, we then might expect to be getting 1m for him instead of 500K (just an example).

And of course, we HOPE that having such great facilities will increase our odds of finding these young gems, but that's the icing on the cake (in my opinion). City surely must be relying on the bread and butter of an academy which is a player factory.

That's not to say City won't hope to be able to create a Barca type team where a core of young lads DO make it to the first team, I think that's our goal... I'm just saying that we must have a realistic view too that the academy will have to yield a good number of 'sellable' players at the same time.

I consider it a bit like a Chip manufacturer.... we'll keep or sell the high grade stuff for a premium, but we we have a process that ensures a minimum quality, and THAT yield is where we will focus most of our work. It's folly to expect another Barca or Fergie's kids. All we can do is lay a foundation where that COULD happen if we get lucky.

 

[Chancy Termites]

Re: Etihad Campus, Stadium Development and Collar Site (cont

Could someone summarise how is it being funded - mortgaged against the club's turnover over a period of years, or did ADUG just chuck the money in? Or do they own it and rent it to the club?

 

[FantasyIreland]

Re: Etihad Campus, Stadium Development and Collar Site (cont

A superb piece by the Mail,for once......probably deserving of its own thread and a wider audience.