1 October 2010

The losses being racked up by Manchester City have leapt a third to £121 million in recent accounts for the year to May 2010 just published by the club.

This compared to a deficit of £92.5 million and is one of the biggest losses yet racked up by a Premier League side. The club spent £133.3 million on wages but only turned over £125 million, which would be totally unsustainable were the club not owned by the wealthy Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi, who has spent more than £300 million on players since buying City.

In a message to fans, Mansour wrote: “[The] challenge I set my board and executive leadership yeam is to develop City so that it is one of the most successful clubs both on and off the pitch, but to do so without

losing any of the characteristics that make it so special.” The club claims to have £1.5 million on

improvements to the pitch at the City of Manchester Stadium and an average of £255 on improvements to

fan-related services and facilities in the last two years for every season ticket holder and the average

attendance for Premier League home games rose 6.1% in 2009-10 to 45,513, but the problem is the wage bill and this means that the club is unlikely to meet UEFA’s new financial fair play rules unless City’s owners can secure an exemption.

Wages and salaries rose to £118.4 million (2009: £73.7 million) and including social security and pension payments took the total staff costs to £133.3 million (2009: £82.6 million). The number of staff has tripled over this period with City employing an average of 413 staff last season (2008: 302). City did make £10.2 million from player sales but the amount written off on the value of players ballooned tot £71 million (2009: £39.4 million). This took operating losses up to £126.1 million (2009: £73.6 million) and lost £121.3 million (2009: £92.6 million) before tax. Excluding player write-downs, City lost £55.1 million (2009: £334.2 million). The players are not the only ones taking increasing amount of money out of

the club and the highest paid director of City, who is un-named, earned £1.8 million in the last season – up from £1.4 million in the previous season.

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