Shogun PaiN said:
You finished 3rd and won the FA cup after spending 300 Million pound on players. Your nowhere near the top. Until players actually want to join City on merit and not just for the £££££ and until you regularly challenge for both the league and the champions league its best to keep phrases like that well and truly hidden away.
The latest in the Alexis Sanchez transfer saga speaks volumes. The guy wont even board a plane to Manchester despite City offering him mega money. Then again that might of been poor journalism lol.
At the end of the day, if people think "YOU BOUGHT YOUR WAY TO THE TOP" is going to ever wipe the smile off my face after a win, they'll be sorely mistaken.
I'm not injecting conviction, I'm just using a bit of common sense. A lot of your players are on high wages, that's well known. An assumption, albeit a pretty safe one, is that not many clubs are going to want to match these high wages for said players, should City want to sell them. Therefore the player has 2 options in this case: 1) leave but face a wage drop or 2) stay and sit out his contract at City for however many years on his high wages. I would assume many players would be content to take the money, given how important it is in many transfers these days.
As for those stadium rights, Arsenal's naming deal, the most expensive at the time 5 years ago, was £100 million spread over 15 years, or approximately £6.67 million a year. The crucial point with deals such as stadium naming rights, is that as far as the FFP rules are concerned, any such deal needs to prove it is conducted "at market value", or that another club could get a very similar price for the same deal. So even though you will get an increase on <£7 million a year, it won't be "megabucks" when spread over the years of the contract, otherwise there's a high chance it will be deemed to be above market value and will be discounted when taking the revenue into account for the FFP calculations.
Genuinely interesting, so thanks for that. In regards to the issue of high wage bills in getting rid of players, I can see that being a problem with a few players, specifically the older ones, but I think most will be happy to leave to play football elsewhere. Adebayor, Jo, Santa Cruz, Boateng, Bellamy etc, already want to leave. SWP and Viera want to stay, so you probably have a point there.
In regards to the stadium rights, I see what you're saying, but it would be remiss of me to question the business acumen of our owners, considering the job they have done so far. Sure, the stadium naming rights might only allow us to pocket 5 million a year, but this is all part of the Sheik's plan. This is why we've been (slightly) more quiet in the transfer market thus far. Out big spending days are behind us, largely. We have a strong core now, and any additions will either be replacements, or offset by trimming the herd in other places.
Don't forget, players like Tevez and Balotelli will leave before the guidelines take effect, and there's 50 million right there alone. Like I said, my faith in the owner's is quite real. We'll be fine.
