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Tottenham fans,will you be supporting city?

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posted on 14/9/11

Edin, at the moment we wouldn't get past the ffp rules. Fortunately (for us) it's a couple of years before they come into full effect.

It's because of the implimentation of the FFP that City's spending has been so vast over the last 3 years. a "get it done before the FFP comes into effect" approach. Whether City can turn an operating profit in the next few years obviously remains to be seen, and it is reported that the next financial report (relating to last season (and thus having no bearing upon the FFP) will contain a loss. The report after that one will be the crucial one.

So how to turn a £120m (approx) operating loss into a profit? Well, stop the spending for a start - that is the biggest factor in City making a loss. Increase revenue (in the last released report, revenue increased by 40%, and that's for a season that didn't have Europa football, let alone Champions League, so that alone shows that in terms of revenue the club is moving in the right direction).

After that, the biggest (obvious) problem is wages. I suspect that our wage expense will max out at around £150m per year. What is interesting is that contracts signed before June 2010 (if I recall correctly) are not included in the FFP, so the wage bill that counts towards the club complying with the FFP will actually be lower than that amount (for example, Tevez' wages won't be a factor). Nevertheless, I believe that we really need to be looking at trying to reach a revenue (income) stream of around £200m per year.

Champions League for this season alone is said to be worth anything from £25/30m upto £60/70m for a British club (dependent upon size of club (i.e. attendances and the knock-on effect of that), and of course level of success attained in the competition).

The sponsorship deal - in all honesty, I have no idea of what the exact figures are, and out of those figures, the amount that is ploughed directly into the club, so the following is just an estimate - but it could be worth upto around £20m - £25m per year to the club.

Based on the figure released in the 2010 report, our revenue then stood at £125m per year. Taking the lowest figures cited above, add £25m from Champions League, and, say, £15m from sponsorship (the £20m figure minus what the previous sponsorship deal was worth), and that figure has already risen to around £165m per year in revenue.

Which would exceed the wage expense, but is still not enough to a) cover all expenses and b) (more importantly) return a profit. So an additional £35m per year has to be sought from somewhere to break the £200m per year mark (that I feel will be necessary for us).

Well, ticket prices have increased, albeit only slightly, but an increase nonetheless, but then attendances have also increased, so the benefit there is two-fold. TV revenue money will also naturally increase. By how much I couldn't say, but it may only be by a few million per season in terms of domestic match broadcasting. Then there is of course merchandising. I couldn't even begin to put a figure on that!

These figures are all aproximations, but I think they serve the point. Which is namely that it won't be easy to comply with the ffp, but by the same token it will be by no means impossible.

posted on 14/9/11

come on chaps lets be friends,im sure youll enjoy watching city tonight
hope all goes well on thursday

posted on 14/9/11

Ah right ok Ripleys

However I dont think you income will be greater than your wage bill IMO. Think you guys might struggle

posted on 14/9/11

I'll confidently state right now that our income will exceed our wage bill. It's whether our income will be big enough to account for all the other aspects of football that remains arguable...

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