An historic season for Pep Guardiola and his players combined with unprecedented commercial success at the club to make 712m for the 2022/23 campaign – smashing past the previous high of 648m announced by United last month – that also saw a rise of 30 per cent in matchday revenue. This was largely due to playing four additional home games, and high-profile ones at that including Liverpool, Arsenal, and Chelsea in domestic cups, as well as considerably more money earned from the summer tour to the United States after not going anywhere the year before while Covid restrictions were still in place
City also recorded a club-best 80m profit, almost doubling the number from the previous year. This was helped greatly by over 120m of profit on sales that was up by over 50m on the previous year, including sales of first team players Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus but also a chunky sum from academy talents.
However, the cost of attracting Erling Haaland and others to the Etihad as well as bonuses and securing a number of contract extensions saw the wage bill jump up to 422m to set another record high in the league. While bonuses for winning an unprecedented Treble will have added to the hike and the percentage of employee costs to revenue ratio has barely changed (up to 59 per cent from 58), the Blues will know that success must continue to maintain this.
“In the aftermath of the UEFA Champions League win in Turkey and the completion of The Treble the question I was asked most often, was How do you top that?” said chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak.
“The answer is by doubling down on the proven philosophies and practices that have brought us this success and to challenge ourselves to continue to constantly innovate in order to achieve new levels of performance both on and off the field. We will continue to question all the industry norms, we will evaluate our successes and learn from any failures.
