mancityblues.com

In the first century BS (before Sven), Manchester City were little known outside the UK, or even beyond the borders of Cheshire. We were the team people had "a soft spot" for, and if we ignore those successful years in the late sixties, we caused little trouble for anybody.

Now, we are told, City are on a mission to rule the world. Famously owned by a consortium of wealthy Arabs, rich beyond our wildest dreams, the bright new starlets in the global pantheon of football greats, the name on everybody's lips, all that nonsense.

Under Svennis the menace we started brightly in the league and were booking our flights to European destinations, until the squad began to crack around Christmas and we limped to a miserable end of season which saw Sven removed, Dr. Thaksin's disappearance, new ownership and Mark Hughes.

This season has been about building for the future, patient development and the odd star name to please the punters and sell the shirts. All sound business sense, except the coach is constantly veering off the rails, the ship is tacking against a strong headwind, our front wheel is buckled and the piece of card in the back spokes that makes us sound like a motorbike has flown out. We are in the do-do. Again. Or so it would appear.

The recent top twenty premiership earners list placed us in the bottom half, with a respectable income of something like £45m per annum. DeLoitte then gave out re-jigged figures that almost doubled our income to £80m. Compared with Liverpool, Manyoo etc., whose annual income is around £200m, it makes us pretty small beer of course. Yet there we sat with a big new council house stadium, a history of passionate support from a very large world-wide fanbase, the original sleeping giant! Little wonder then that we attracted attention from money men around the globe. The possibility that City (among other clubs of course, I don't claim it true for mine alone) could produce the earnings that the big four enjoy.

City re-enter Deloitte rich list

The annual Deloitte football 'rich list' was published this week (link to pdf here) and after dropping out last year, we re-enter at number 20 with our revenue increasing from £56.9 million to £82.3 million (2007 report, 2008 report).

The revenue figure is based upon three revenues - matchday, broadcasting and commercial, with broadcasting dominating the overall figure, accounting for 53% of total revenue. Interestingly though, our re-appearance is largely due to our commercial revenue increasing by 45% to £20.5 million, citing our kit deal with lecoq sportif as a reason behind this.

This particular area (commercial) is something that the new ownership (and Garry Cook) are clearly targeting further and next years report will be interesting to see how far we have progressed in this particular regard.

Thanks to bitterandblue.blogspot.com

With a raft of investment, time and trouble, the prize offered by Sky and CL football is quite startling and very attractive to the high rollers.

I don't believe for one single moment therefore, that Abu Dhabi United group are in this for a quick kill. Their eyes are firmly fixed on a long-term goal, and they have the funds to dig in and wait. Whether or not they stick by Mark Hughes in his hour of desperation or turn to someone else to guide the team, in the long run it is really only a blip, a downturn that any business would expect and allow for in the budget. I have no concerns about the constancy of the owners, my concerns are more immediate and lie with Mark Hughes and the squad.

Sack him or back him, City fans are divided, yet I sense recently a shift towards the first option. If the team really don't want to play for him, and last Saturday against Pompey that certainly seemed to be the case, then something needs to be done. Premiership survival is our first priority at present, but in the long-term, Hughes or no Hughes, the building blocks are in place, we need only keep the faith.