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.
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