Business Booms At ‘Boring’ Manchester City

As Manchester City’s return to English soccer prominence evolved into a decade of domination a familiar criticism emerged.

Just as bitter rivals Manchester United’s near monopoly of the Premier League title was branded ‘dull’ in the 1990s, the inevitability of trophies arriving on the other side of the city has been also labeled ‘boring.’

More than half of the previous 10 Premier League campaigns have ended with the trophy sitting in the Etihad cabinet, four of which have come in the past five years.

A fan of this season’s main challenger for the Premier League crown, Arsenal, went viral recently for pushing the ‘boring’ concept one step further, suggesting it was a slog even for Manchester City’s fans.

“I think City is the most boring team to ever win the Premier League. I’m not debating they don’t play decent football, they play very good football,” the supporter said.

“In 2012 when they won it [for the first time] under [Roberto] Mancini before Sir Alex Ferguson had left [Manchester United], we were invested in that, there was a story about that. [Vincent] Kompany scored that header in their game, the [Sergio] Aguero moment. Since then, even City fans aren’t invested in it.”

Understandably, this opinion was not appreciated by City fans, especially those who’d seen the barren three decades before the league title victory ten years ago.

But the reality for Manchester City was it needed a period of ‘boring’ domination if it was going to become a powerhouse of English soccer.

An indication that point has been reached can be found in the club’s 2021/22 financial results that demonstrated the extent to which the sporting dynasty is established.

Playing catch-up

Given the spending Manchester City has embarked on to secure a place amongst English soccer’s elite, the narrative around the Citizens very often focuses on expenditure.

The club’s defense has been that, given the level the team was at when it was taken over by the Abu Dhabi United Group in 2008, substantial investment was a necessity for it to reach the same level as the leading clubs.

Now, however, chief executive officer Ferran Soriano believes it has fully arrived.

“In 2008 we gave ourselves the target of exceeding the benchmarks that had been set by others within football; and in doing so, to also exceed the new standards that we believed leading clubs would achieve in the time it would take us to catch up,” he wrote in the annual report.

Adding: “Our aim was clear – to one day be the Club that set the benchmark for others. The statistics and results show that in many ways we are beginning to achieve our long-term ambition.”

This year more than any other, the club’s actions demonstrated its position as an established power.

There were no frantic player acquisitions, a handful of first-team players were transferred to rivals and youth prospects were sold for substantial profits having barely played a game.

No longer was Manchester City seeking to emulate the status of other clubs, it was the ones the competitors were seeking to acquire expertise from.

It was a theme mirrored by the headline financials, the club reported record revenues of $702 million and pre-tax profits of $47.7 million.

But more impressive than the rises is the consistent level at which crucial portions of expenditure sat.

As online soccer financial expert, The Swiss Ramble, pointed out City’s wages fell slightly by $1 million to $405 million which “means they have remained around this level for the last 3 years,” in contrast Manchester United’s wages which have increased $114 million in the same period.

Although the Swiss Ramble highlighted that other clubs like Chelsea ($381 million) and Liverpool ($360 million) were lower than their rivals and had increased significantly since 2016, the plateauing of wages they revealed was important.

Salaries are the biggest cost at any soccer club and even those at the top cannot let them grow continuously.

A balance must be struck where success can be maintained, but not by any means.

It’s also not necessarily a recipe for winning as shown by Manchester United, who has spent more than its rivals recently but remains a distance from the elite.

But as the adage goes, you are never more vulnerable than when you are at the top, the club must be prepared to adapt to new challenges.

Domestically, there is the rapid development of Newcastle United, backed by the considerable wealth of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, and at Chelsea, new owners will continue to re-establish the club at the top table of the game.

Now with news breaking that Liverpool FC could potentially be sold, there could be another set of proprietors vying for domination at the top of the English game.

It is a landscape CEO Soriano seems to appreciate.

“If anything is more difficult than winning, it is winning again,” he wrote in the annual report, “being able to understand that previous successes mean nothing when a new competition starts takes a rare talent. And to win again takes character, humility and resilience.”

And if rival fans believe this repeated success is ‘boring’ it’s probably a sign Soriano’s methods are working.