Manchester City has reported its first profit in the seven years since Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan bought the football club in 2008.
Manchester City Football Club has released its Annual Report for the 2014-15 season (click here to download). The online report describes the highlights and the on-going development of the Club over the past season in the context of the seven years since the acquisition of the Club by His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan in 2008.
Of most significance in this reporting period, is the posting of a £10.7 million bottom line profit, the Club’s first to have been achieved since the 2008 acquisition, thanks to record annual revenues of £351.8 million (up from £347 million) and a reduced wage bill of £193.5 million (down from £205 million).
Speaking in the report, Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, comments on the on-field performance of the men’s first team, and highlights the wider successes across all of the Club’s Academy year groups. He also praises Manchester City Women’s FC which won the Continental Cup in its first season in the FA Women’s Super League.
Off the field, special mention is made of the opening in December 2014, of the ‘transformational’ City Football Academy – a central element of the Club’s sustainable footballing growth plan.
Talking of the Club’s growth and its move into profit, Al Mubarak references His Highness Sheikh Mansour’s strategy laid out in 2008 as “a strategy predicated on long -term sustainability and the ongoing development of momentum year after year.” He also summarizes the overall financial health of the organization: “To put things in their simplest terms,” he says, “we are now a profitable business with no debt and no outstanding restrictions.”
He concludes by referencing that the club has “further strengthened its foundations for future success” over the course of last year and looks ahead to the new season and the “renewed opportunity to test our capabilities and once again measure how far we have come as a Club.”