United did it courtesy of the Edwards dynasty and pork butcher money. Plain and simple. There is no club that rises to the heights without a serious injection of cash, and that has always been true since WW2. (May have been true even before, but my knowledge of pre-1939 football history is pretty patchy).
I have yet to have anyone explain to me why that kind of money is clean and honourable, and oil money isn't, by the way. It's all the more ironic in that virtually everyone (except for myself) runs a car, and considers it a necessity. I'm almost certain that a considerable part of the hostility towards City is fuelled by a racism that does not dare speak its name. If your owners are white, and American, that's ok. Even if your owner is white, and Russian, that's just about ok. But the Middle East? Dirty arabs, don't you know?
Nah, it’s just jealousy. They spout shite that isn’t even true!
Here is the usual list.
Other fans: Funded by the Adi Dhabi state.
Reality: We are 78% owned by an Abu Dhabi based PRIVATE equity GROUP of people, 10% owned by a USA based PRIVATE equity GROUP of people (bought stake in 2019), in fact the only sovereign wealth fund that has anything to do with us are CITIC (bought stake in 2015) who are Chinese and own nearly 14%.
Although ADUG did directly inject £1.3B between 2008 - 2015, £265M was recouped in the sale to CITIC in 2015 and then £365M in 2019 from the sale to Silver Lake (total £630M).
Deducting the £150M it cost to buy the club in 2008 there has been a net investment of £820M, the last sale of shares valued the club at £3.3B, valuing the 76% of ADUG shares at £2.6B, they have made a net profit of £1.8B since their acquisition in 2008.
CFG have turned a profit in every year since 2015, USING THEIR OWN MONEY to buy players.
Revenue is up year on year, we are an extremely well run business, we are ran by a chairman who has an Economics degree from a US university and also sits on other boards including Ferrari!
You can see why that lot across the road are frustrated at the servicing of buyout debt and then their majority shareholders taking dividend payments out of the remaining profit as it has ultimately meant we have spent more than them on players despite them making more than us!
I can see why other clubs think it is unfair, City are the club they are now due to the £1.3B cash injection they received between 2008-2015, that’s business and we’re not the first club to get investment, it’s just ours appear to be better at it, than United, Blackburn, Chelsea, Liverpool, Leicester, Villa, Newcastle etc etc etc.
Other fans: But UAE’s human rights record.
Reality: China’s is definitely worse and America’s isn’t great either with illegal wars and Guantanamo, we’re owned by all 3.
Granted the owner of the investment fund ADUG is the deputy prime minister of the UAE, but I don’t see what the laws and culture he was born into have to do with investing in a football club or how these other fans think that belittles City’s success! City will be here long after any more (100% guaranteed) changes of ownership
Other fans: Can buy whoever they want.
Reality: We are constrained by growth due to FFP, as you can see by our accounts and the our transfer record. I think with a couple of CL wins and the commercial deals we’ll undoubtedly get off the back of that that won’t be too far away, it’ll be from money we’ve made ourselves due to success on the pitch.
As I said they’re green with envy and we are lucky as **** with Wardle looking to sell to (and finding) rich investors.
