When will it end?

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The Life & Times of Helder Postiga

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Spurs fan in peace, addressing any City fans who skived off from work today due to 'terrible headaches and blurred vision'.

First off- well done on the thumping victory. David Silva is awesome.

Being utterly ignorant of the basic tenets of economics, i wanted to pose the following question:

What exactly are the sheiks aiming to get at the end of this very expensive experiment they are currently conducting? Logic would dictate that they seek financial gain as well as worldwide recognition.

But let's take a look at the coffers of your dear rivals. Like it or not, Utd have dominated english football for nigh on 2 decades. In addition to regular EPL titles, they have been shipping in trophies and awards by the lorry-load. Like it or not, they remain a FAR more widely "supported" team than City (especially where I come from in London!), and have an international fan base that makes Lady Gaga's look like a small private funeral for family members only.

Put simply, their revenue from TV rights, trophies and club merchandise is astronomical. And just recently, there was great fanfare as it was announced that the club had taken in a record-breaking annual profit of <drum roll smiley>......

£110.9m

<applause>

Call me Ebeneezer Scrooge, but in today's crazy game, that is NOT a lot of money. That would buy you Lionel Messi plus a year or two's wages. Finito. The sheiks probably use that sort of money as toilet paper. More than that, the recent flotation of United shares in Singapore indicates that things are NOT as financially stable as the Glazers would have you believe.

Compare to the situation at City, where your wage bill alone already EXCEEDED United's ENTIRE profit, LAST YEAR (£133m). I shudder to think what heights it has hit this season, with the arrival of Aguero, Nasri and co. Transfer fees FAR exceed United's, signing-on fees are exorbitant, you're apparently about to begin construction of a whopping great big academy and training ground so brand-spankingly new and shiny you could put it in a tin and call it Mr.Muscle.

I'll quickly get to the point b/c you're probably too hungover to continue reading this drivel, but HOW ON EARTH will the Mansours EVER turn over a profit from their expensive little toy?

United have been taking in far more revenue than you for 2 decades, spending (slightly) less on wages and less on transfer fees. They haven't built a new stadium, nor have they built a whole club town adjacent to Old Trafford. And yet, they still struggle to show a decent profit (hence the fanfare when that figure was announced in August 2011).

It looks like a power-shift is occurring in the EPL. Perhaps City will eventually come to dominate Europe too. But so what? No amount of trophies or TV rights or merchandise or fans or awards seem to turn the financial tide. It would seem (and this is where i need the economics advice) that your wage-bill and transfer fees/other investments will ALWAYS outweigh income. So, Sheik Mansour, what exactly are you hoping to accomplish with your new toy?
 
They might.
They've got a very good squad.
Then again, they should have, really.

Edit: By the way, can everyone keep this civil, please? I've seen too many cross-board threads descend into ****e, so I'll be keeping an eye on this one.
 
Thanks for the insightful replies, Ensil & Luke.

Ensil- when you say
The issue is that profit and Return on Investment isn't important when you have a bottomless pit of cash
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, i can't help but raise the old eyebrows. If the Mansours were having a field trip in Argos, I'd agree: Their pot (didn't want to point out this error but couldn't help myself- sorry!) of cash- relative to the place where it is being spent- would indeed have bottomless potential. However, when you're throwing around 100 MILLION every bleeding transfer window, my puny mind cannot fathom how the pot- or pit- would remain bottomless, ESPECIALLY given the interesting points you've raised about Etihad's apparent inability to balance the books themselves.

To put it more precisely: Would the pot remain bottomless for long enough for the dividends to actually be paid off? For City to become a GLOBAL force as famous and as popular as United? It took Utd two decades to start showing profits in excess of 100 million which- as I pointed out- REALLY isn't the bee's knees nowadays. That sort of money would be able to cover two thirds of City's annual wage bill. Peanuts then. A drop in the ocean.

Is the pot- or pit- two decades deep? Doubt it. Just look at Chelsea. Still a force to be reckoned with, but NOWHERE near the world-dominating force that Roman envisioned when he turned up with his "bottomless pot/pit". They haven't even won the champions league yet for pete's sake! Abramovich definitely slowed his spending in recent years. His bottomless pit lasted 3 years, from 2003-2006 when he poured 450million into the club. Since then- Torres aside- he HAS slowed down drastically. Why? b/c he ain't in Argos.

I honestly don't think City fans have stopped to consider the impossibility of the situation; the Mansour's stand to gain NOTHING from this experiment. IMHO, I'd be surprised if they broke even at the end of it all. Which leads me nicely into....

Luke- your line:
City fans should be cautious of Mansour and his billions arriving at the club. Humiliation awaits if he ever gets bored.
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hits then nail squarely on the head. As blackburn fans are so painfully finding out as we speak, takeovers by sugar daddies with little to no emotional or historical connection to the club will often lead to an aloof, uncaring and seemingly disconnected relationship with the club's "best interests".

What if Mr.Mansour wakes up one day having just had a wet dream about Accrington Stanley? What then? His current club- Man City- have won 9 trophies since his arrival and recently opened a brand spanking new training ground and academy called Mr.Muscle, but are STILL running at a loss! He says 'sod you, I'm off to Accrington to start my next sitcom'.

It makes me so grateful every time Levy opens his mouth and a gloriously poorly disguised cockney accent soars majestically out of it. Love him I do.

Thanks again guys for your insights.
 
Feel free to offer alternative viewpoints, but abuse, WUMing and obvious **** stirring are all unnecessary and unwanted.
Keep it civil or **** off.
 
Father_Jack_Hackett said:
I believe he is aiming to win the PL this season then he is going to spend the money buying all the sugar he can get his hands on so he can give you bitter ****s some free to put on your sour grapes.
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I would have hoped that the first line of my opening comments would've made it perfectly clear that I am not remotely bitter. I congratulated City on their fine performance yesterday, and singled out praise for Silva who IMHO is one of the finest players to have graced the english game. Ever.

In all seriousness, I hope you do win the PL this year- win it next year too while you're at it. Change is good. I was simply asking your opinions about the FINANCIAL aspect of the 'blue revolution' currently going on up the M6. Do you think it is sustainable or feasible? What are Mansour's actual motives and long-term plans?

Best of luck for the rest of the season, as well as in europe (I tend to support all the english teams when they're playing in europe).
 
I'm pulling this from the City board.
It's not going to go over well and I have no intention of watching over a boring slanging match.
 
Is there any way i can post it EXCLUSIVELY on the City board, then? Im genuinely interested in hearing (hopefully) some well-reasoned responses to my general question!
 
Ensiluokkainen said:
I did intend to use the word pit (http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/a+bottomless+pit) <ok>

I repeat that a ROI isn't important to them - it's all about buying market share, brand awareness (be it Etihad or the country), currying favour and attempting to appear respectable to the West. However coming into money doesn't buy you class, neither does it buy you friends - it might also buy success but it won't ever buy respect.

They may well decide to cut off funds to Man Pity - to tell the truth I hope they do. Until such time I will continue to treat Manchester's other club and its followers with the contempt they now deserve which is sad because there was once a time when I followed their ups and downs with affection.
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<laugh>

Damn! I KNEW i wouldn't be able to catch you out Ensil! My fingers were trembling with the fear of "are you sure this is a good idea??" as I typed that 'correction'. They are now making rude gestures at my brain.

I think, overall, i have to agree that on the surface their motivations and aims do NOT appear to be simply about making another fat wad of cash. Ho hum.
 
The Life & Times of Helder Postiga said:
Is there any way i can post it EXCLUSIVELY on the City board, then? Im genuinely interested in hearing (hopefully) some well-reasoned responses to my general question!
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I could just move it onto the City board, but I doubt that the mod that called you a bitter **** would appreciate it.
I'd rewrite it slightly and start a new one, if I were you.
I understand what you're trying to do, but I think that this is like asking our fans what we're going to do when Redknapp bankrupts us, in all honesty.
Tread carefully and expect to get slagged off anyway.
Good luck!

Schteffen Freund's Top 10 Greatest Goals said:
Pre-empting or have you deleted some posts, PNP?
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Both, SF.
I deleted a few and saw how it was going.
 
What's the difference between that and the extremely dubious ways in which some other clubs, like Man Utd, Real Madrid or Barcelona, have gained their success, Lidls?
 
And how does that differ from Man Utd being part of the G14, tapping up players all over the place, being part-owned by BSkyB and terrorising match officials?
Why is one worse than the other?
 
PleaseNotPoll said:
What's the difference between that and the extremely dubious ways in which some other clubs, like Man Utd, Real Madrid or Barcelona, have gained their success, Lidls?
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Spot on PNP. I was hoping someone would mention EL Clasicash on this thread. The way in which Real and Barca have financed years of dominance has often been quite frankly disgusting. However, the OP is more concerned with the question of how sustainable these multi-billion takeovers actually are; in all honesty, i firmly believe that the Real/Barca waltz will last for longer than the Etihad one. Why? Well, to paraphrase a mate of mine who lives in madrid (Real fan, obviously), because the banks are told in no uncertain terms that if they don't cough up loans to sign the likes of Ronaldo and Ozil, they will find themselves magically short of 5 million customers before they can say 'Ole'. So, as long as the banks live in fear of losing their customers and shareholders, Real and Barca should be home n' dry.

City, on the other hand, have no such leverage. Mr.Mansour cannot peer down his oil hole/pit/pot and say 'if you don't cough up more crude by tuesday you'll have no clients'. The finances of Real and Barca are inextricably intertwined with Spain as a country and as a culture. The finances of City are not. As such, i can't help but feeling that the bubble WILL burst, and it'll take us all by surprise when it does.

P.S: Apologies for any cross-board headaches i've caused you PNP! It's a shame that they turn so nasty so quickly. Why can't we all just get along? <picks-up-guitar-at-bonfire-smiley>
 
In Ferguson's first season Man Utd finished 11th.
That's pretty solidly midtable.

Development of youth players?
Yeah, other people's youth players, unfortunately.
I'm sure you'll deny it, but we all know how that youth system was 'developed'.
 
littleDinosaurLuke said:
Well, I don't accept all that, but it's not the issue anyway.

The English league has always been a meritocracy. Can we say the same if City win it?
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The English League has been won, for as long as I can remember, by the richest clubs that could buy the best players. If you want an example or two, take Leeds and Blackburn. Both clubs that won the League by having huge cash injections which no longer apply. Were their wins of more or less merit than anybody elses? Liverpool had the Moores to buy their golden years and ManUSA have spent immense amounts (and are still in debt because of it) to secure and maintain their success. This cash wasn't found at the bottom of a money well at Old Trafford.

The idea that any club somehow built it's League winning position from the ground up is ridiculous. Because of the higher stakes in football, instead of super rich, now the megarich are getting involved. It is just a logical progression of something that has always gone on. Will the bubble burst? Who knows? But until it does and probably after, the club with the deepest pockets will win the Premiership.
 
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