The Manchester City Thread

Get rid of the thing in my opinion. I loved when Chelsea were bought by Abramovich and loved when City started spunking millions and finally challenged/surpassed United on the pitch.

Manchester City maintained its positive trajectory in 2013-14 by reducing losses and increasing revenues for the third consecutive year.
A bottom line loss of £23m has been reported for 2013-14 in addition to an operating profit before player trading for the second year running. The bottom line figure includes the accounting of £16m as a result of UEFA sanctions imposed in May 2014 following disputed breaches of its Financial Fair Play regulations.

Manchester City generated £347m in revenue in 2013-14 breaking the £300m threshold for the first time in its history. The Club has experienced revenue growth across the board with commercial partnerships revenue up by 16% to £165.8m, broadcast revenue up by 51% to £133.2m, and matchday revenue up by 20% to £47.5m.
Key drivers of increased revenue in 2013-14 included the new Barclays Premier League television deal, extended campaigns in the UEFA Champions League and Capital One Cup, the retention and recruitment of a variety of regional and global commercial partners and the hosting of additional events at the Etihad Stadium.

Significantly, wage costs have been stabilised and the wage-turnover ratio now stands at a healthy 59% (2013:86%).
Consistent with the commitment made in 2009-10 that transfers of the scale seen in previous years would be unlikely to be repeated, significant benefit has been gained from greater stability in the first team squad resulting in reduced amortisation costs.
Important progress has been made on two key infrastructure projects during 2013-14. The opening of the City Football Academy in late 2014 will further transform recruitment, training and development capabilities while the expansion of the Etihad Stadium to a capacity of 55,000 will enable more fans to attend Manchester City home games from the 2015-16 season onwards.

Importantly, Manchester City’s financial position remains strong. Net assets are valued at more than £572m and the Club continues to operate with zero financial debt.

Additional transfer fees, signing on fees and loyalty bonuses of £100,563,000 (2013: £53,857,000) that will become payable upon the achievement of certain conditions contained within player and transfer contracts if they are still in the service of the Club on specific future dates are accounted for in the year in which they fall due for payment.

Transactions during the year ended 31 May 2014 with City Football Marketing Limited, a fellow subsidiary of City Football Group Limited, consisted of the sale of intangible assets of £nil (2013: £11,566,000)....
Transactions during the year ended 31 May 2014 with City Football Services Limited, a fellow subsidiary of City Football Group Limited, consisted of the sale of intangible assets of £nil (2013: £10,887,000)....

Transactions during the year ended 31 May 2014 with Manchester City Women’s Football Club Limited, a fellow subsidiary of City Football Group Limited, consisted of a donation of £256,000 (2013: £nil)
Transactions during the year ended 31 May 2014 with New York City Football Club LLC, a fellow subsidiary of City Football Group Limited, consisted of loans totalling £308,000 (2013: £nil)

I can't really bring myself to hate City. The work behind the scenes RE: youth academies and construction like this is brilliant. Something Chelsea don't really do.

The more info coming out about Lampard's Man City deal makes things feel very salty with how Man City have somewhat manipulated the system on the sly.

Go on?

Frank Lampard has finally signed his Major League Soccer contract to play for New York City FC.

NYCFC confirmed to The Associated Press on Saturday that this week Lampard signed a contract to start in July — midway through the new team's first season in MLS.

The announcement followed the AP detailing repeated misleading public statements from NYCFC and partner club Manchester City about Lampard's status.

NYCFC stated last July that Lampard signed a two-year contract to start in August 2014. Within two weeks, Man City said the former Chelsea midfielder was returning to the Premier League on "loan," having previously categorically ruled out playing for another English club.

But after the Man City stay was extended on Dec. 31 until June, it emerged that Lampard was in fact on a permanent deal in England. Such was the confusion, the Premier League this week investigated the contractual confusion and prompted Man City to eventually confirm that Lampard was in fact only ever under contract with the English champion.

The Abu Dhabi-owned club's parent company, City Football Group, acknowledged on Friday that the announcement in July was an "error," and that Lampard had previously signed only a "commitment" to play for the New York team from January 2015 on a two-year contract.

City Football Group confirmed on Saturday that Lampard had now signed the same commercial terms that he committed to last year. CFG did not immediately say if Lampard's contract runs to December 2016 as originally intended or for two years from July 1.

More than five months after NYCFC's erroneous announcement, MLS said on Saturday: "Frank Lampard has signed a contract for NYCFC."

City Football Group's conduct over Lampard has been criticized by American pundits and fans of NYCFC as well as newspapers in England. Britain's Daily Mail newspaper said Man City's "reputation at home and abroad is in tatters" over the "trail of misinformation and confusion."

All of this is dodgy as hell. How did City loan him for New York if they never bought him? Ridiculous.

Reports this morning saying Uefa are looking into it.

Sure Wenger called this right back in August.

Wenger claimed it was an FFP dodge. That's so vague it's virtually meaningless.

Wenger claimed it was an FFP dodge. That's so vague it's virtually meaningless.

It does seem there a bit of dodyness going on though.

Owning three clubs and 'loaning' players between them, especially when two of those leagues have a salary cap and the other involved with FFP, is going to raise some eyebrows.

But thats essentially what it is?

True but there's a difference between seeming dodgy and actually being dodgy. I can see how it could be - i.e. if NYCFC were paying a players wages during a loan to City - but that doesn't seem to have happened, people just seem to be going to the reflex reaction of it seems dodgy, therefore it is. Everybody was up in arms about the Etihad deal and that was perfectly legitimate despite all the claims along the lines of "it's clearly dodgy".

The Villa deal was the bigger eyebrow raiser for me. I mean he only ended playing 4 games for Melbourne were he was classed as being in a guest stint which doesn't affect the cap. Then the reports came out that his wage at NYCFC was around 60k. So it seems like there has been some front loading of his contract while he was at Melbourne.

As long as it isn't illegal I am not even that bothered about the City group exploiting the situation they have tbh. Wouldn't be surprised to see some rule changes come in over the next few years though when it comes to players being traded between clubs owned by the same people.

True but there's a difference between seeming dodgy and actually being dodgy. I can see how it could be - i.e. if NYCFC were paying a players wages during a loan to City - but that doesn't seem to have happened, people just seem to be going to the reflex reaction of it seems dodgy, therefore it is. Everybody was up in arms about the Etihad deal and that was perfectly legitimate despite all the claims along the lines of "it's clearly dodgy".

How is it though? What do you think they're actually doing that is against the rules?

Could City not basically have Lampard without paying his wages? Rather than declare his wages on their wageroll to the FFP they could say that they have loaned him from New York who will pay all his wages for the duration of the loan.

If Lampard had actually cost money it would make sense, but seeing as he didn't the idea that its an 'FFP dodge' is absurd, even if you assume he's been given a hefty signing on fee.