Man City to test Fair play rules

[kingfunk]

Eh sell the club, as if the give a **** anyway, they could buy a club every day of the week.

[Craig_H]

No doubt they dont give a ****, but they arent going to make back over £1bn in investment. Football doesnt pay out those kind of riches.

[RichC]

No doubt they dont give a ****, but they arent going to make back over £1bn in investment. Football doesnt pay out those kind of riches.

Yup, they're taking the short cut to win things obviously but growing the club into a global brand they could trade off to look at making that sort of money back is a long, long way off.

[Mostar]

No doubt they dont give a ****, but they arent going to make back over £1bn in investment. Football doesnt pay out those kind of riches.

Absolutely. They will never be the self-sustained club.

With the wage bill they carry and money spent lavishly on big time transfers they are so much in the hole that they couldn't cover their expenses even if they would win CL 5 times in a row especially as the entire commercial revenue is coming out of their own pockets and TV rights are clearly not enough to put a dent in their ridiculous all year round spending

[Roboklopp]

Sell the club? Who to FFS? Noone is gonna offer £1b for it- and they'd need to pour even more money down the drain to keep the club running at that level.

[dom9]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-city/8626593/Manchester-City-insist-Etihad-sponsorship-bonanza-will-not-fall-foul-of-Uefas-Financial-Fair-Play-rules.html

Manchester City insist Etihad sponsorship bonanza will not fall foul of Uefa's Financial Fair Play rules

The agreement, which is due to run until 2021 and will see Eastlands renamed the Etihad Stadium, is the largest single agreement struck by a football club and could see up to £40million a year ploughed into City’s finances by the Abu Dhabi government-owned airline.

With the agreement further strengthening Manchester City's portfolio of Abu Dhabi-based commercial partners – the club have five sponsorship agreements with Abu Dhabi companies – the market value of the naming rights deal will be scrutinised closely by Uefa, however, to ensure that the club are not benefiting from inflated rates as a result of owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan’s position in the Emirate.

A Uefa spokesman said: “We are aware of the situation and our experts will make assessments of fair value of any sponsorship deals using benchmarks.”

The substantial investment from Etihad covers more than the re-branding of City’s stadium, however, a reality which has left senior figures at the club relaxed about the prospect of meeting the FFP strictures.

Incorporated into the naming rights deal is an upgrade of the current shirt sponsorship agreement – worth just £3.2million a year when struck in 2009 – and a substantial investment into the area surrounding the stadium in east Manchester, which includes Sportcity, retail outlets, car parks and a proposed new academy and sports science facility.


That area will come under the umbrella of the Etihad Campus and, with infrastructure development exempt from FFP regulations, the wide-ranging make-up of City’s deal with Etihad leaves Uefa with no obvious benchmark to measure against when reviewing the club’s lucrative agreement.

City will be expected to deliver a clear breakdown of the deal to Uefa, but Cook insists that discussions have already taken place and will continue to do so.

He said: “We already have a very open dialogue with Uefa and have had several meetings with their people. They are very supportive of our plans.

“All clubs have to comply to meet regulations and we are no different, but we are looking to grow, on and off the pitch. The backdrop, of course, is Uefa’s Financial Fair Play and this [deal] helps to continue to make significant progress in that area. It would be very fair to say this is a real deal. Financial Fair Play isn’t the driver, commercial growth is the driver.”

Despite Etihad being owned by an Abu Dhabi government headed by Sheikh Mansour’s half-brother, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the airline’s chief executive, John Hogan, insists that the sponsorship arrangement is purely business-driven. He said: “If this deal didn’t add up, I would not be doing it. We are a stand-alone business owned by the Emiracy, but we are responsible for our own activities.”

With City continuing to rent the stadium from Manchester city council, Sir Richard Leese, the council leader, revealed that a new rental agreement between the two parties which enabled the club to secure a naming rights deal, struck earlier this year, will see the council receive £20million over the next five years from the club.

Having posted losses of £121million in financial results for the year ending May 2010, City are faced with a stern challenge if they are to meet Uefa’s FFP criteria, which precludes total losses in excess of 45million euros (£40million) over the three seasons of the first monitoring period, which begins in the 2011-12 campaign.

But while the financial fillip of the Etihad deal will go a long way towards helping City break even, comparisons with individual deals struck by the world’s major clubs suggests that the naming rights deal is not likely to fall into the category of artificially-inflated rates.

Barcelona secured a five-year shirt deal worth £125 million with the Qatar Foundation earlier this year, while Manchester United are expected to replace their £302.9million kit deal with Nike – struck in 2002 – with a deal in excess of £500million in the next year.

In contrast, City have reached their impressive figure by packaging the stadium name together with shirt space and surrounding real estate.

Meanwhile, City’s first-team squad flew to Los Angeles for pre-season preparations yesterday with several out-of-favour players left at home by manager Roberto Mancini. Shay Given, who is the subject of interest from Aston Villa, remained in Manchester, along with Craig Bellamy, Emmanuel Adebayor, Wayne Bridge and Jo, who is a loan target for CSKA Moscow.

[Arn]

Top clubs want Manchester City's £400m sponsorship deal vetoed

Europe's leading clubs will petition UEFA to block Manchester City's new £400million endorsement deal.

They want City's ground and shirt sponsorship contract with Etihad Airlines outlawed because they believe it has been artificially inflated in an attempt to balance the books.

UEFA's new Financial Fair Play rules insist clubs live within their means and City, who have incurred losses of £213.5m over the last two years, had little hope of complying before the huge deal.

The governing body also demand that clubs demonstrate they have received market value for any deal, to prevent owners from subsidising clubs through companies that are closely associated with them. UEFA's Independent Club Financial Control Panel will investigate the Etihad deal but rivals want to pressure them into action. If UEFA do outlaw the deal, boss Roberto Mancini could see his spending plans curtailed.

Opposition clubs have been emboldened by the fact the contract is a world record, outstripping even the remarkable £18m-a-year stadium naming rights deal the New Yorks Mets, a much-more established sports brand, have with Citibank.

The fact that Etihad was set up by the Emir of Abu Dhabi, Sheik Khalifa, who is the brother of City's owner, Sheik Mansour, has also fuelled their suspicions.

Etihad is the national airline carrier of Abu Dhabi and itself has never made a profit since it was formed in 2003, though it is expected to make money this year.

Clicky

[Mostar]

Good.

[Arn]

Good.

When it is more than double than what JP Morgan Chase will pay for the naming rights for the new Madison Square Garden then you know that something is very wrong.

Everyone know about MSG. How many know about City of Manchester stadium? If Man U for example sold their naming rights then they could probably get away with almost the same as MSG. Double it and it is a joke.

We could probably get away with around £15m a year max for our naming rights.

[Arn]

Uefa promise hard line on City's £400m windfall deal

European governing body investigates if sponsorship deal breaks Financial Fair Play rules

By Steve Tongue, Football Correspondent
Sunday, 10 July 2011

Manchester City's ground-breaking £400 million sponsorship deal will face a Uefa investigation amid growing concerns it could breach the new Financial Fair Play rules. European football's governing body have promised City's envious rivals that they will take expert advice on whether the Etihad Airways agreement, announced amid considerable fanfare on Friday, is against its new code, monitoring of which began last month.

Last night supporters groups rounded on City, claiming the deal drove a "coach and horses through the market place". Uefa will be under intense pressure to ascertain whether the £400m is artificially inflated to help City comply with the new rules.

Etihad is the national airline of Abu Dhabi, whose ruler is the half-brotherof City's owner Sheikh Mansour.

"Uefa will use relevant experts to make assessments as to the fair value of any major sponsorship deals, using appropriate industry benchmarks," a spokesman told The Independent on Sunday. "These will then be considered by the Club Financial Control Panel, together with any relevant information the clubs present regarding the deals, when they assess the break-even requirements."

City, who are expected to announce losses in two months' time in excess of last year's £121m, insist the deal is based on legitimate market values and will help them move towards meeting the FFP requirements of losing no more than ¤45m (£40m) in the three years to 2014-15. Clubs must effectivelybreak even by 2018 or face being barred from European competition.

Bayern Munich's chief executive, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, who is also the chairman of the European Club Association, has said: "Perhaps they know a trick which I don't that will allow them to take part in the Champions' League."

Last night a spokesman for the Arsenal Supporters' Trust said: "It's like a match where one side decides to follow the offside rule and one doesn't. The City deal drives a coach and horses through the market place."

Clicky

[wavydavy]

City are nobodies in the grand scale of European football and IMO UEFA will take great pleasure in hanging them out to dry. The top clubs are set to benefit most by the FFP rules and will ensure City are brought to book over this.

[wavydavy]

I'm really not sure how you reach your conclusion though. If United spending megabucks and then Chelsea doing so - and both winning ****loads via this route, how do you conclude that City wont?

In time, of course they will.

We shall see. You obviously think they will.I don't.

[Mostar]

Eventually they will get it right. With spending so much money year in and year out it would difficult to imagine that they will not win at least a league here and there.

[Craig_H]

We shall see. You obviously think they will.I don't.

History and evidence tells us that teams who spend fortunes, tend to win things. That's what i'm basing my view on. Is yours based on what you hope will happen, or something slightly more reliable?

[wavydavy]

History and evidence tells us that teams who spend fortunes, tend to win things. That's what i'm basing my view on. Is yours based on what you hope will happen, or something slightly more reliable?

I agree totally that there is definitely a correlation between money and success, no question, it's just that in Man City's case it really doesn't fill me with dread. I personally doubt whether they'll be able to take advantage of their wealth as Chelsea did under Mourinho and B'burn did under Dalglish. You could argue that by winning the FA Cup and getting into the CL that represents success already but as I said earlier in this post something looks amiss to me at the moment. If say a Bayern or a Dortmund aquired middle eastern wealth things would be different and I would be ****ting bricks at the prospect of what they could become. City, (and I repeat)solely IMO, will take a long time, if ever, to usurp the real big boys of the UK and Europe. It all makes for a very interesting next few years as the FFP kicks(or doesn't!) in and we see how the new order lines up. Will Malaga, Getafe, PSG, City and a financially and commercially resurgent LFC be able to truly compete with Barca, Man UTD, Real, Inter & AC etc? I remember about the time of the Arab takeover at City Noel Gallagher was asked about City winning the CL. He replied that they wouldn't be able to for various reasons the most obvious being that "We are Man ****ing City" I agree with that, joke or not.