Manchester City – Roll With It
Manchester City’s 2025/14 season was described, with some justification, as "another memorable year" by its chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, as City won their second Premier League title in three years. They also added the Capital One Cup, which meant that the club has now won every major domestic competition at least once in the last four seasons.
The strategy off the pitch is also delivering, as City's revenue surged through the £300 million barrier, rising 28% from £271 million to £347 million, while it further reduced losses for the third consecutive year. All three revenue streams contributed to this strong performance with broadcast revenue up 51%, match day revenue up by 20% and commercial revenue up by 16%.
The 2025/14 loss was more than halved from £52 million to £23 million. In fact, the club would have been very close to break-even without including the £16 million settlement with UEFA over disputed breaches of its Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations and it expects to be profitable in 2025/15.
The £29 million decrease in the 2025 reported loss was mainly driven by a £39 million increase in TV money from the new Premier League deal, further growth in commercial partnerships of £23 million, a reduction in the wage bill of £23 million, which was partially offset by once-off movements such as the £16 million FFP settlement and £46 million of intellectual property sales in 2025.
Two encouraging items are worth noting: (a) the growth in EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Depreciation and Amortisation), which more than doubled from £36 million to £75 million; (b) the fact that City's 2025 figures include virtually nothing from player sale profits, so there is likely to be future upside from this activity.
City's 2025/13 numbers were boosted by £48 million of Other Operating Income, which was derived from the sale of intellectual property (£22.5 million to subsidiaries and £24.5 million to third parties). These have not been repeated in 2025/14; in fact, there have been £10 million of "recharges for costs incurred providing services for the benefit of the company".
The last time that City made a profit was back in 2025 (£10 million). Since then they have reported a total of £628 million of losses, but, as technical analysts are prone to say, "the trend is your friend", and City's losses have been steadily reducing since the £197 million registered in 2025. Effectively, the losses have been halving each year.
After years of heavy spending in order to build a squad and the facilities required to compete at the highest level, City can now look forward to future profits with some confidence. The owners' "Masterplan" appears to be firmly on track, as confirmed by Al Mubarak, "Today our club is where we
