Don't mock City spending

[Guy Debord]

I think there's no doubt that once this season is over the club will look to the leisure development and an enlarged stadium with more corporate facilities to push up revenue.

'The latest Deloitte Football Money League report revealed City's match-day revenues and commercial income were both relatively low compared to other big hitters in the Premier League.

In the 2008-9 season, City collected £20.8m annually – £8.2m lower than Newcastle United despite playing seven more matches, and around half that achieved by Tottenham despite having average league attendances 7,000 higher'.

United's is around £100m a season.

Some interesting points in there from the Liverpool aspect. One thing I take from the article is that if the takeover is not completed in this transfer window, they may be in a bit of a pickle with regards spending any money resulting from a cash injection.

From our own perspective, the first thing that needs to happen is to buy out the council's interest in the attendances over 34,000 as this will massively hamper not only current income, but potentially also be an obstacle to increasing the capacity.

The 2nd thing that needs to happen, is that City need to start distributing their merchandise through a better & bigger distribution network than their own store and frankly shite website (imo). I know kitbag have been brought in, but unless this is going to result in other retailers being allowed to stock city shirts, then I don't see how we intend to take over the world, or for that matter, even Manchester.

Those two individual actions would boost our income by huge amounts. The first would be by making a one off payment this year to the council so the income will show up on our books in full, but the cost of buying those rights wouldn't. If we can't get this sorted, it really wouldn't surprise me to see us plan a new stadium altogether.

Good Points John, I imagine City could get whatever they want from the council since Mansour is spearheading East Manchester regeneration these days.

[Ted Hughes]

I think there's no doubt that once this season is over the club will look to the leisure development and an enlarged stadium with more corporate facilities to push up revenue.

'The latest Deloitte Football Money League report revealed City's match-day revenues and commercial income were both relatively low compared to other big hitters in the Premier League.

In the 2008-9 season, City collected £20.8m annually – £8.2m lower than Newcastle United despite playing seven more matches, and around half that achieved by Tottenham despite having average league attendances 7,000 higher'.

United's is around £100m a season.

And significantly higher ticket prices for City fans, I would presume.

Depends how much sponsorship money (real or iffy) is brought in I should think & whether we can generate money from extra tv rights, outside interests etc. It's a very grey area from what I've read in that document. It could also be that they'll expand the stadium & keep the ticket prices reasonable, as stadium expendature doesn't count. We haven't got a cat in hells chance of qualifying as things stand, because the wage bill on it's own will be significantly more than the income & is likely to remain so. The fact that we've been happy to increase it hugely means we have something up our sleeve imo. I doubt they're daft enough to have a plan of huge ticket price increases because the slightest bit of market research should tell them that many of us simply can't afford to pay it. Unlike the rags, they don't yet have enough people to replace us if we pack it in.

Imo the key to this is to make it APPEAR that we're doing everything they ask, towing the line & following the rules. Then they'll leave loopholes for investment so long as we're not too OTT. Once they either ban or waive the rules for Barca or Real it'll all fall apart & Platini will get sacked (or if it's AC Milan; shot or strangled with chicken wire).