The last two weeks in England have been marked by the international break and by the publication of the annual accounts of clubs like Everton or Fulham. A crucial moment for the Anglo-Saxon teams that for a few days examine their numbers to, if necessary, question them
This has happened with the Manchester City, leading team in income generation, as revealed by the report Football Money League of the consultancy Deloitte. A study according to which the sky blue team billed 645 million euros at the end of the 2020-21 season, above Real Madrid and Bayern Munichin second and third place, respectively.
Most of the clubs suffered the economic impact of the pandemic. not like this City, which saw its income from television rights and commercial rights increase. The latter, precisely, have been the subject of debate in Great Britain, where a football legend like Gary Neville has called them into question.
“Manchester City became the richest club in the world this week, according to Deloitte. That can’t happen without exaggerating your endorsement deals. You can’t be earning more from sponsorship than Liverpool, Manchester United, Real Madrid, or Barcelona.”explained the former English player, in a statement collected by Raj Chohan, from the BBC.
Revenue from sponsorship of the citizen team, valued at 308 million euros, grew by 8% in the last year. But this growth was marked by the creation of new sponsorship agreements such as that of Masdar, a renewable energy company from the United Arab Emirates which is part of the Mubadala investment fund, whose executive director is Khaldoon Al Mubarak himself, the president of Manchester City.
This circumstance strengthens Neville’s theory about City. A club that also has other agreements under suspicion such as that of Wega, a “non-existent” companyas revealed by an investigation by OFF THE PITCH, which would have no assets or workers and would only present a mailbox in London.
The City, under suspicion in parliament
Chris Bryant, British MP for the Labor Partyhas been the last to put the spotlight on the Manchester team by criticizing Sheikh Mansour in the House of Commons. The owner of the City, in addition to being the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, met with Bassar al-Asaad, president of Syria and an ally of Vladimir Putin, his counterpart in Russia.
The meeting was criticized by Bryant, who commented: “There has been barbaric and sustained killing in Syria, co-led by Assad…now Putin is doing the exact same thing against a sovereign and innocent country like Ukraine…and there are people who want to meet? with these thugs?
But Bryant’s comments weren’t isolated. Even before his speech in parliament, a spokesman for the government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office criticized Assad’s visit to the United Arab Emirates, as reported by The Telegraph. A new chapter in the controversial history of Manchester City…