Mansour's Billion Dollar Men
Manchester City just released a financial report and even in a world where obscene amounts of money are spent on football clubs, the figures are truly staggering. The USA Today and David Conn in the Guardian have the scoop. Let’s walk through the numbers…
Remember that in August 2008, Mansour initially outlaid £210m to purchase City from Thaksin Shinawatra. After that, Mansour then poured in £394.5m to cover City’s operating expenses. Like Roman Abramovich and Chelsea FC, Mansour’s investment was converted into equity shares so that technically City is debt-free (in fact, some of Mansour’s investment paid off pre-existing debt from Thaksin’s reign). As a result, City operated at a deficit of -£92.6 as of May 2009, which is triple from the previous year.
But it gets even more amazing! The newly released report is only as of May 2009, meaning that the £394.5 investment does not necessarily take into account the £120m+ in transfer fees paid this past summer to purchase Santa Cruz, Toure, Adebayor and Lescott. Nor does it include the money spent to buy out Sparky’s contract and to pay Mancini. Nor does it cover the overall increase in payroll from all the new players brought into the club.
Oh, and in comparison to this massive outlay of cash, most estimates are that City’s revenues have only meagerly increased by 6%.
What does this all mean? According to my back-of-the-envelope estimate, Mansour has so far spent well over US$1 billion on City. Mansour’s total investment is likely in excess of that amount, with further outlays required to cover the club’s now massive wage bill and future transfers. Of course, City released the usual statement about long-term investment and the club being self sufficient soon. But even by the gross excesses of modern football clubs, Mansour’s approach has been truly breathtaking, but also somewhat vile. There is a sense that Mansour is overpaying simply because he can, and it is hard to imagine where you go from here. Spend $2 billion? $3 billion? All for a bunch of men who run around on a pitch chasing a football.
We can always hit up Mark Hughes for another 250,000 pound loan.
I can’t get over the insanity of the attempted Veron move.
Next time I fill up my car I’ll wonder who it’s going to help Citeh buy. Is Jaap Stam still in the game?
He’s a scout for United now. He wouldn’t even have to sell his house, pull the trigger City!
I’d actually enjoy a move for fat Ronaldo, so long as we’re going after older South Americans.
Your new City right back ….. Isabel Allende!