General Premier League Thread 2023-24 Mod Note in op 27/6/23 And 21/05/24

If you can explain to me in a reasonable way how Man City have been generating more money than any other football club over the last few years then sure go for it.

I'd love to understand how

...yes and they would have much much larger followings abroad.

What point are you countering?

You answered some of the questions in your initial post.

Would you genuinely love to know the answer? Or is that a throwaway comment? Cos I dont want to waste my time trying to explain part of it if u are just being facetious. More than happy to take it to PM to avoid derailing the thread for others.

As I said, we can't believe that their commerical income grew by £32m (even if that actually is a believable number to grow by), because of the history of cooking the books.

Also, the breakdown of the details of the commercial revenue is not discloses, so we don't know if it's legitimate companies sponsoring the club legitimately, if it's the friends & family of the owner just handing over cash, or if it's fake shell companies set up with the sole purpose of funnelling in cash to the club.

It's probably a mixture of all 3, but we don't and won't know the ratio of it. It could be 5% legitimate, 5% friends and family and 90% shell companies for all we know.

And that's what is propping up the club being able to spend vast amounts on wages, which went up dramatically this year.

For me, there's no smoke without fire. Phillippe Auclair the French journalist has been quite outspoken about the dubious sponsorships of City and other clubs, namely 8XBet. There's a huge amount of holes in their 'history', social media pages that have little to no followers for a company apparently pumping billions into the club, founded in UAE surprise surprise, the whole thing just looks like nonsense.

It's all well and good to say you'll wait and see what comes out in the court case but even if it goes to court, as we know money talks and we may never actually see the truth. Mason Greenwood's case never got to court but doesn't mean he's innocent, I never want him to see him in a United shirt again.

What I will say that a little bit agrees with what you say above is that City have been very naive with some of the companies they have dealt with your example of 8xbet is a good one on this point. There are a couple of examples of this happening and in the grand scheme of things the amount of money generated from these deals is peanuts. There are also tonnes of legit Asian gaming businesses they could have dealt with that would have provided a similar amount of revenue and avoided the bad exposure that comes from this. We dont know the exact amount the deal is worth but city would have to show its fair market value, it wouldnt be possible to use this deal to pump billions into the club.

I know some here will argue that I am naive to believe it but when you own a billion pound business your due diligence should be top notch and there is very little reason to be dealing with these companies for the amount of revenue generated. If the sole purpose of these deals like 8xbet is to bring fake sources of revenue to city then it would be stupidity of the highest order. And to date they havent shown that.

Fans in seats don't decide how popular a club is these days. The money comes from TV deals, sponsorship, shirt sales etc.

Now I'm not saying that City are bigger than Barcelona, Real Madrid or United but success and big name players brings more fans on board and create bigger sales worldwide.

Haaland is probably in the top five biggest stars in world football right now, De Bruyne has been up there for years. You've got Ederson, Dias, Rodri and Alvarez, because of his world cup exploits. They are all big names. At this moment only Real Madrid can match them for big name players.

Even at that the revenue sounds too high to me but when you consider Barcelona earned €1.3 billion and Real Madrid brought in a record €843 million it's not completely impossible that they earned that.

United's income dropped to €710 million last year but they haven't had any big success for years now. United earned over €800 million in 2019 but it dropped every year after that until 2022.

2022 was a big year in earnings for all the big clubs.

Forbes have City valued only $350 million less than United right now.

It just seems that there is 8Xbet, you have Etihad Airways (an indirect link these days to Abu Dhabi), Etisalat Group, Visit Abu Dhabi, Emirates Palace, (owned by the Abu Dhabi government), some other dubious crypto currency companies that all have no history, little assets and links to UAE. Lots of links to some legit companies that can filter money to the club with inflated sponsorship deals and some non legit companies to get more money into the club. It's like playing football manager, - taking over another club, buying a shít player for the bulk of the transfer fee of the team you're focused on, transfer goes through, resign as manager of the other club and continue on with a nice chunk of change. Cheating.

I get you're a fan and will obvious be bias, it just screams to me City can do what they want because they've an unlimited pot of money to answer or delay any questions that come their way about FFP where nothing will happen to the club.

It sets a dangerous precedent and ultimately is bad for the sport. Success should be built on the pitch, it's why I have been so against Qatar taking over the club I follow and it's why City's success will always be tainted unless they can 100% prove they are innocent.

I commented on this above already.

That mysterious betting company's deal would be included in the accounts just released?

Do my research? Sure if I do my research am I going to find an independent body that will explain why the majority of home matches are sold out yet thousands of seats are empty during the match? No I will get reports from the club and supporters groups explaining why they "sell out" each game.

The naked eye tells me more than any research could do

I will just debate the first point you made, those companies mentioned are legit companies and different to your original point on shell companies which I acknowledged was poor. Those deals with the likes of Etihad have been put to the test alot in court cases and none have come back above fair market value. Id nearly argue they sold themselves short on Etihad by signing up to such a long term deal as in hindsight it looks a little light for where city are now. Obviously these companies have a relationship with the owner and I recognize that, but thats business.

Its abs not the same as your example(in my opinion) of football manager buying a **** player for miles above the market value to get funds into the club. There is a whole other debate around FFP and the merits of it but they have done what they have done to maximise owner investment while trying to remain compliant with rules. Whether they have been compliant enough we will see from the fall out of the charges.

I appreciate the debate though and I get why you would see it the way you do. I think if things were different and shoes on the opposite feet and we swapped united with city 50 years ago we would likely be in the opposing camps we are in now.

My initial issue is the throwaway comments from people here(and the media) that wont look at the accounts in detail, read a headline and say oh thats because of creative accounting for last year. City are past needing creative accounting and have been for a number of years. They legitimately generate huge revenue, the success on the pitch generates that alone nearly.

Do you not think sponsors target clubs with bigger fanbases?

If you are sponsoring a club the first thing you'd be looking for is the exposure your company will get from being linked to the club.

That needs fans. It needs shirt sales. It needs star power. They want kids wearing their logos and their brand being exposed to as many people as possible.

Taking that into account you would never pay more to sponsor City over Man Utd, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Barcelona etc.. And somehow City want us to believe that this is happening.

Haaland is City's only real superstar and to be honest he was well on his way to that before joining them.

There's many many more kids out there with Rashford or Salah kits than there is De Bruyne kits.

The numbers just don't add up.

As for TV I'd actually love to see a break down of weekly viewing figures from games involving each club. I'd like to see how many tune in to watch Man City play Bournemouth and how it compares to when Utd or Pool play them.

Anyone know here I can see these numbers?

Yes please.

Can you tell me how City generate more income than Man Utd, Liverpool, Real Madrid or Barcelona.

I know they won the treble last year but they have been reporting revenue higher than those clubs for a while now.

How does a sponsorship deal with Man City get valued at the same level as a deal with those other clubs despite the fact that your sponsorship will see less eyes on a City kit?

How do you know that this 8xBet deal, which you've as good as admitted is shady without saying it, is worth peanuts?

Man City haven't released the details of each commercial revenue deal individually. They've just announced that it increased by £32m. How do we not now that some other shell corporation are not sponsoring them for £32m in a new deal?

When the allegations are against you, these are the questions that need answering.

You have made a lot of points that I dont have the time to answer all but il pick up on a few.

In 21/22 if you owned a big company would you rather put your logo on Man City who played every conceivable major game or Man United who played the Europa league and came third in the prem without being involved in the title race? Answer that objectively as a business owner. You have answered this somewhat above but actually landed on United over city i think.

From a kid’s perspective I would argue Haaland, Grealish and KDB are all huge superstars. These are who kids are looking up to and there playing for city, hell haalands on the cover of this years Fifa(or whatever its called).

I dont live in Ireland and dont live in the UK but at kids football that I coach there are abs more city shirts than united shirts. Liverpool being the one that has the most from my sample set of about 100 kids! There are alot of kids and young adults who have only known city as successful with world class players so of course the fan base is going to grow.

You are correct though that more people would watch liverpool/united versus Bournemouth than city v Bournemouth. I think thats undeniable, what does it prove though? Your tv money isnt based on how many people watch your games. Its based on league position and number of tv appearances and guess what? Man city number 1 for those. Worth noting as a side point the most watched premier league match of all time featured Man City.

If you look at what makes up the numbers they do add up. Have a deep dig into it or wait till later in the week when the Swiss ramber does it, either way it will be an interesting read.

Sure if you know you know, no point me trying to debate it with you.

The auditors are lying to you, the broadcasters are lying to you about how much their paying out, the leagues are lying to you about the prize money, the buying clubs are lying to you about how much their buying city players for. Everyone is lying just so they can all collude to the fact that city had the highest revenue for last year. Just so they can have another award to go with all the other fake awards.

Man why did i not notice this before!

Bigger fan bases worldwide is what sponsors target. It doesn't matter how many bums you have on seats so long as there's a loud roar every time you score a goal.

Shirt sales are global.

I only said De Bruyne has been up there for a few years now, not that he was the top seller.

I was just explaining that there's a number of big name players at City now.

Haaland is second to Messi in soccer shirt sales worldwide then Mbappe, Salah and Vinicious junior. De Bruyne is sixth and Ronaldo completes the association footballers in the top ten most sold jerseys in all sports.

Fans are attracted to winning clubs and City are basically dominating for a number of years now and they'll have bigger figures next year after winning the Champions league.

Complete different point to the one I was debating so we will have to save that one for another day as I have taken up enough of this threads time today!

Maybe the owners are buying up a bunch of tickets? A legal way to put money into the club. They might have been doing this since the start and haven't stopped. If that's the case then it's explainable. If that's the case then maybe the ground would be full if they stopped doing it.

Eh, ever hear of season tickets?

And why would City fans be interested in going to miniscule cup games? They only care about the Premier league and Champions league I'd imagine.

12 points are been awarded to City

While trying to skirt past the pi55ing match over the last 3 pages, I was just going to remark that I too have never seen a kid wearing a De Bruyne jersey. Even the Haaland ones are scarce.

What this about Everton and 12 points deduction going ahead?