Our financial reports are scheduled to come out soon and I'm planning on doing a deeper dive on this when they do, but one thing I see often repeated in this thread that I've become very skeptical of is the idea that Messi would "pay for himself". I don't believe he would.
Our commercial revenue really isn't that far off of Barcelona's. Total commercial revenues for Manchester City in 18-19 were £228m, and that includes all the sponsorship arrangements as well as any events put on at the Etihad like concerts, random conferences, grounds tours, etc. Barcelona's total commercial revenue meanwhile was £290m, only £62m more than ours, and that includes all of this magical Messi money as well as the earnings power of their massive global brand. So to pay for Messi we would basically need to match their revenues - we're really two years of a 34 year old Lionel Messi away from matching the commercial power of Barcelona?
That's not even accounting for how shitty the advertising economy is right now. We're in a global recession. Etihad would've probably been bankrupt by now if it weren't for state support and we just signed a new shirt deal. Where is this extra money coming from?