How Man City bought 4 Intl's for £8.7m

Manchester City have topped the summer spenders in the transfer market but will still dodge financial fair play.

Manchester City have pulled off a cash conjuring trick to bring in four top players … at an increased cost of just £8.7m!

That is the finding of a study of the Blues finances by respected football finance blogger The Swiss Ramble, who has delved into the figures surrounding the club’s £142million transfer splurge.

Many have questioned how City can “get away" with such a big spend, just a season after they were punished by Uefa for breaching financial fair play limits.

But the Swiss Ramble blog, written by qualified accountant Kieron O’Connor, has come up with the simple answer.

And when the maths are done, City have added Kevin de Bruyne, Raheem Sterling, Nicolas Otamendi, Fabian Delph, Patrick Roberts and Enes Unal to their ranks for small change!

City made £347million in 2013-14, second only to United in the Premier League. And with a the bumper new TV deal about to kick in, City’s commercial department working on lucrative new sponsorships – including a possible revision of the blockbuster shirt and stadium deals – and with stadium capacity increased, that trend is continuing.

In fact, given the strength of the pound against the euro, City should overtake Paris St Germain and be challenging Barcelona and Bayern Munich for third and fourth places on the world money list.

But the process of amortising the cost of players over the length of their contract, has drastically reduced the figure that appears on the books. For instance, de Bruyne’s £54m cost will be spread over the six years of his contract, so on this year’s accounts he will have cost just £9m.

When you tot up the amortised cost of all their signings, it will appear on the books as £26.5m.

Player sales appear on the books in full, so City raised £35.4m from the departures of Alvaro Negredo, Matija Nastasic, Scott Sinclair, Dedryck Boyata, Karim Rekik, Rony Lopes, plus loan fees for Edin Dzeko, Stevan Jovetic and Jason Denayer.

And, while the new boys added £31.7m to the wage bill, the departures of high earners James Milner, Frank Lampard and Micah Richards means the wage bill is REDUCED by £10m.

That wage bill had already been significantly reduced by the re-negotiation of the top salaries to give a lower basic wage but higher performance bonuses.

The 2013-14 accounts also included compensation payments to Roberto Mancini and his coaching staff.

So City have improved the squad for £8.7million, while boosting revenue and slashing the wage bill – magic man Dynamo could not have done it any better!