Will we ever become self sustainable?

[Neil McNab]

Did you not realise that football isn't a proffit business?
Over the last twenty years I bet we've only broke even for a couple. Bernstein tried putting us on a sensible financial footing and worked wonder to steer us away from big trouble as did Makin who will always have my grattitude despite it not being a silverware littered period for the club. Nearly all premiership clubs run at a loss and even if they don't the proffiit is negligible compared to turn over. Football is a promotional tool only as far is businessis concerned, until it's all regulated in some way I wouldn't worry about it. Our club is an asset, assets never dissapear they just change hands. Worst case is we do a Leeds......so what!

 

[samharris]

You are worried? Why? City have no debts. We just need to qualify for the Champions League to improve our revenues.

Chelsea is losing money every year 50 million a year some a year or 2 ago if I remember correctly. How long have they been trying to start breaking even?

Do you think that Mansour will want to pay a 100 mil every single year? Not that it would be much to him but still...

Their casino will cover that..

 

[mcfcdaytona]

If you think Nils Zander is anyway near a first team place - think again - he has been a big disappointment.

 

[fulhamroad22]

It really depends. From a Chelsea supporters point if view, our losses have been reduced £20 Million a year since 2006/07 onwards. Abramovic is becoming sensible with his money and I reckon the club will break even in two years with the team still challenging for the title and Champions League. City's self-sustainibilty also depends on Sheikh Mansour's ability to be sensible. Financial results for the 2008/09 season showed around £93 Million loss, the 2009/10 results will be significantly more. Chelsea had a similar scenario, albeit the losses weren't as large as what City's will inevitably be next year, so it really depends whether the Sheikh will make a commitment to the club with regards to self sustainibilty.

With regards to a previous post about Chelsea, my Dad is an architect and Chelsea have asked for potential designs for a 62,000 seater at the Battersea Power Station site. The directors are looking at a move as we could easily get another 10,000-15,000 a match. If/when this happens Chelsea will be in an excellent position. We also have the best training ground in the country and excellent youth development at Cobham so the resources are pretty good.

 

[goose72]

I don't think we'll ever really know if we're self-sustaining. The new owners have stated from the outset that they want City to essentially be an advert for Abu Dabhi. We could lose 500M a year, but if they feel that is being repaid by the greater presence of their nation/tourism/international prestige then we're fine. Alternatively We could make 500M profit, but if we do so in a manner which doesn't suit their advertising plan they won't be happy. So let's just not stress and get on with winning all 3 competitions we're still in ;)

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I assume the OP means while playing at the top level with the level of wage bill we currently have.

We could be but there are two things required above all else. The first is regular CL participation and that means getting out of the group stage and into the last 16 knock-out phase (and beyond). That will probably add something like £35m prize money.

However the other is increased ticket revenues. The smallest revenue of the big four is currently Liverpool's at £159m. The other three all turned over in excess of £210m in the financial years to 2008. Of that Liverpool £159m, I'd guess that around £55-60m was ticket income (they don't publish the figure). So we need to at least be bringing in £40m MORE at the gate than the £15m we are currently doing. That means we may well have to pay a lot more for tickets, expand capacity and fill the ground regularly.

 

[Footyblue]

Football as a business is awful. And the owners knew it when they bought the club. This is fun for them, not a livelihood. Relax. The club isn't 700 million in debt.

 

[Amigo]

I hope so, but i'm not a financial expert so I wouldn't know.

Could be worse though, could have bought a debt-ridden club, free-falling with an old team......

 

[Tricky_Trev]

I assume the OP means while playing at the top level with the level of wage bill we currently have.

We could be but there are two things required above all else. The first is regular CL participation and that means getting out of the group stage and into the last 16 knock-out phase (and beyond). That will probably add something like £35m prize money.

However the other is increased ticket revenues. The smallest revenue of the big four is currently Liverpool's at £159m. The other three all turned over in excess of £210m in the financial years to 2008. Of that Liverpool £159m, I'd guess that around £55-60m was ticket income (they don't publish the figure). So we need to at least be bringing in £40m MORE at the gate than the £15m we are currently doing. That means we may well have to pay a lot more for tickets, expand capacity and fill the ground regularly.

This. It's inevitable we'll end up paying rag prices for tickets in the future. Or not, if you're one of those that would be forced to jack it in as a result, freeing up space for plastics.

Just out of interest, does anyone know how our wage bill compares to the sky 4? I'm curious to know.

 

[dctid]

Something I´m quite worried about. Isn´t Chelsea still losing 10s of millions every single year?

The only way to become self sustainable is too produce many of your own players - the current stadium capacity and the revenue it generates is insufficient even with CL monies (Chelski prove this) and high ticket prices certainly higher than ours would not cover the wages / salary of our ages etc.

I think this explains our focus on the academy