City post small loss

Manchester City recorded their first non-Covid financial year loss in a decade as they invested heavily in first-team signings, reports the New York Times.  City posted their third-highest revenue total of £694.1million – a decrease of £20.9m compared to the year before – but lost £9.9m for the year ending June 30, 2025.

City brought in £145m from player sales and committed £353m on new players, but chief executive Ferran Soriano stated that these were not short-term fixes, rather an acceleration of the investment planned to kickstart a new cycle.

As with the previous year’s accounts, the board acknowledged that the 115 Premier League charges the club has faced since February 2023 was one of “a number of risks and uncertainties which could have a material impact on the Club’s performance”.

City’s fallow year on the field in 2024-25 was mirrored by a slowing of the financial juggernaut off it, as declining revenues saw the prior season’s £73.8million pre-tax profit swing to a £9.9m loss. It is only the second time in 11 years City have posted a deficit, the other coming amid the upheaval of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

Revenue dipped below the £700m mark after two years above it, with City still the only club in England to have surpassed that level of income. That was likely to change last season anyway; now, with City’s turnover down to £694m, it is probable that Premier League champions Liverpool were England’s highest-earning club last season.

Broadcast income underwent the largest fall, down £16.1m (five per cent), a drop which would have been even larger were it not for City’s participation in FIFA’s engorged Club World Cup in the U.S. in June and July.

Of perhaps greater surprise was a fall in commercial revenue, albeit by just one per cent to a still huge £340.4m. 2025-26 will likely see a return to the norm on the back of a bumper new deal with Puma and potentially large growth in the club’s Etihad sponsor agreement.

In all, the squad at Pep Guardiola’s disposal at the end of June had cost £1.33billion to assemble, the second-highest squad cost in world football behind Chelsea (£1.437bn at the end of June 2024). The club’s transfer debt zoomed up from £109.8m to £326.6m, a mark only neighbours Manchester United currently top in England (£340.8m at the end of September).

Since the beginning of the 2008 season in which the Abu Dhabi United Group first took over at the club, City have spent £2.936bn gross on players, an average of £173m per season (on a net basis, it is £1.839bn and £108m per season).

Funding from City’s owners was £1.229bn in the first seven years post-takeover but less than £100m has been required thereafter. From a football perspective there was no increased need to lean on shareholders last season even with that transfer splurge, in part because so much of the fees will be paid in future instalments.

As for those 115 charges? The accounts make no updated mention of them, other than to say that, as of their publication date, an independent Commission remains in the process of reviewing the matter. No provision is booked in respect of the potential financial repercussions of City losing the case.