Manchester City believe they will pass Bayern Munich in turnover over the next 12 months, propelling the Premier League side from 7th to 4th in the Deloitte Football Money League.
City chief executive Tom Glick told the Manchester Evening News:
“Next year Manchester will have two of the top five clubs in terms of worldwide revenues. We’re catching up with Bayern Munich.”
According to Deloitte, Bayern’ revenues in the last financial year were £313m, while Man City’s were £246m. Man City have plans to expand the Etihad Stadium so that the capacity goes up from 48,000 to 61,000 and have signed a number of new sponsorship deals recently that Glick feels could see City also jump over Premier League rivals Arsenal (£246 million) and Chelsea (£274 million) in terms of total revenue.
If City can make that jump, that is a huge increase in revenue of £69m in one year. Glick attributes part of that to the postseason and preseason tours that took them to the United States, South Africa, Asia and Finland are a sign of their growing global appeal.
“We are very excited about the direction of the club,” he added. “Over the summer we played nine games in four continents and we were astounded by the number of fans and interest in our club.”
City’s revenue will be helped by the new massive television deal that came into effect at the start of this season. If City can finally reach the knockout stages of the Champions League for the first time, that will also generate significant revenue.
Even of they can overtake Bayern, City have a long way to go to catch up with the big three of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United, who are all expected to over the £500m threshold in the next year or so.
