Financial changes at City since the takeover

September 2008 will always be a special month for every City supporter. After years of suffering in which they got the (in)famous tag of typical City for doing things the hard way and losing out matches from jaws of victory, all of a sudden everything changed and City became one of the richest Clubs in the world.

Sheikh Mansour, who has a net worth of £15 billion bought City and simultaneously wiped out the £300m+ debt that City had. Since the takeover, the overall revenues have increased by about 64%. Efforts have been made to improve revenue every season and Soriano has been appointed specifically for that purpose. City were the 7th highest earning club in 2011-12, having being at 11th position in 2010-11. The following is the list of revenues in the respective seasons.

The increase in the revenues can be attributed to the money received from television rights. There has been a constant rise in revenue from television rights over the past number of years; with the new Premier League television rights deal being worth a mammoth £3 billion, this revenue is expected to increase even more for every club.  

Television Rights:

Revenue from corporate partnerships have also increased by 73% since the 2008/09 season. The Eithad sponsorship deal is worth €400m for 10 years. Also Tom Glick is doing a wonderful job since his appointment. City have already entered into partnerships with Daihatsu, Est Cola, GS Battery and Renewed their partnership with EA Sports. The list of revenue from Corporate sponsorship:

Revenue from Corporate Sponsorship:

There has also been steady rise in the match day tickets revenue particularly because of the increase in the average attendances. There are plans to expand the Etihad stadium to 60,000 seater in the future. In comparison, the other big Premier League clubs earn much more than City primarily because the of the low ticket prices at Etihad. The tickets revenue are as follows:

Revenue from Match Day Tickets:

Even though the revenues increased, City have spent more than the revenue in most of the years. City recorded the biggest ever loss by a Premier League in 2010-11 season with a loss of £197m. City halved this loss in the next season and Soriano insisted they will reach the break even point in the upcoming seasons. City have a target to be self sustainable in future and it won't be surprising if the transfer amount reduces steadily in the future. List of amount spent on transfers and losses since the takeover:

 

It's a no secret that City payed massive wages to the players. The wage bill in 2010 was more than 4 times of that in 2007. City's wage bill was approximately around 45% of that of United in 07-08 season. Currently City's wage bill is marginally ahead of United. City are the highest wage paying team in the world with every City player earning around £100,764 on an Average. Txiki and Soriano have already made efforts to significantly reduce the wage bill by offloading high earners like Tevez, Balotelli, Kolo, Maicon, RSC and Wayne Bridge. The new signings have been bought on a wage of £75-90K per week with performance based bonus. The results are that City will be saving around £20m on wages this year.
 

The wage bill: 

Much of the investment has also been towards charitable causes, community work, opening soccer schools around the globe, highly ambitious City Football Academy (CFA) and NYCFC. Considerable amount has been invested in CFA, a 80 acre project. The CFA will contain a training complex which be made on the lines of Milanello and that itself will cost £50m to construct. Around 15 acres of the empty land will be turned into a leisure complex. 5.5 Acre of land will be reserved for the community work. Along with creating 160 construction jobs and 90 permanent jobs,it will also have:

- A home for up to 400 young players who will train and study alongside senior players, with a clear development pathway to the first team

- 11 full size youth development pitches and 4 full size first team pitches

- On site sleeping accommodation and classroom facility for 40 young players to allow them to train and study in a safe and secure environment

- A carefully planned first team building with changing rooms, gym, refectory and injury and rehab centre

- A 7,000 capacity stadium for youth matches

- Staff offices and a dedicated media centre 

- A bridge linking the site to the Etihad Stadium and the rest of the Etihad Campus. CFA will cost a minimum of £100m with another $100m being invested for NYCFC. 

City will receive £58m from Premier League this year and further €28m from Champions League. Adding the cash inflows from the transfer, City received about £34m. Also with the increase in the revenues from the television rights, There's a good possibility that City may reach the break even point this year itself.

Note: The figures have been arrived from the Annual Reports published by MCFC.