Manchester City continues to increase its world power in the football industry. After having played their first Champions League final in the summer of 2021, the team led by Pep Guardiola closed that season (2020-21) with total revenues of 644.9 million euros, which positions them as the team with the best financial balance in that item, according to the annual Money League ranking, presented by the independent consultant, Deloitte.
The Citizens had a dream season by reaching their first continental final after their greatest achievement had been the semifinals in 2016, although they were left with the bitter taste of losing to a local rival: the Chelsea. Domestically, City secured their seventh league title by snatching the trophy from Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool and also their eighth League Cup, which was the fourth in a row.
These sporting merits were combined with the gradual return of the public to the stands, since the premier league followed a rigorous process of reopening the doors between December 2020 and May 2021. However, the highest income did not come from the box office.
According to the Deloitte report, which turned 25 in 2022, Manchester City obtained 52% of its income (335.9 million euros) from the sale of its broadcast rights, while the remaining 48% (308.2 million) came from of its commercial agreements with brands such as Midea and Xylem. His stability to do business has continued in recent months, such as in January 2022, signing with Masdar, the giant renewable energy company from Abu Dhabi.
Manchester City, owned by the royal family of United Arab Emirates, has been part of the Money League in 17 of 25 editions, taking into account that this study analyzes the 20 teams with the best income each season. Guardiola’s team has maintained its figures at more than 500 million euros in the last five years: 528 in 2017, 568 in 2018, 611 in 2019, 549 in 2020 and its historical 644.9 million in 2021.
In this way, City became the fourth team with the number 1 ranking in the history of the Money League, a distinction it shares with Real Madrid, Barcelona and Man Utd. Currently, the citizens are leaders of the Premier League (with eight games to go) and are among the best eight in Europe, playing in the quarterfinals of the Champions League (their series is against Atlético de Madrid).
Even so, Manchester City’s income is still far from the record recorded by Deloitte reports, which occurred just before the pandemic, when Barcelona achieved 840.8 million euros in the 2018-19 season. In that campaign, the total of the 20 Money League clubs was 9,274 million and this time it is 8,178, which shows that the leagues are still in financial recovery.
The second place in the 2022 ranking was the Real Madrid with 640.7 million euros, which shows a decrease of 7% compared to its figure for the 2019-20 season. However, the merengue club had a positive balance in terms of transfers, earning 86.8 million, while Manchester City lost 112.4 million in that category.
The top 5 of the ranking is completed by the Bayern Munich with 611.4 million euros, Barcelona with 582.1 and Manchester United with 558. Barca was the only one that reached 3% of its total income through the box office, with just 15.9 million euros, although at a general level, the club culé had a drop of 18% compared to the Money League of the previous season.
It should be noted that of the 20 teams with the best income in the 2020-21 season, 11 come from the Premier League: Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Leicester City, West Ham, Wolverhampton, Everton and Aston Villa. The rest of the clubs come from Spain (Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atlético de Madrid), Germany (Bayern and Borussia Dortmund), France (PSG), Italy (Juventus and Inter Milan) and Russia (Zenit St. Petersburg).
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