Man City facing financial armageddon and brutal £500m annual loss prediction after FFP ‘catastrophe’
Manchester City have been warned they face a catastrophic annual shortfall of some £500m-plus for each season they are out of the top flight, a financial expert has warned, though a big promise has been made about the loyalty of their supporters if the club is demoted from the Premier League.
The Cityzens are caught up in the biggest storm the Premier League has ever seen after they were found guilty of breaching 114 counts of financial irregularities over nine years between 2009 and 2018 and having inflated their incomes by close to £900m through a series of ‘sham’ deals.
It is important to note, in the interest of fair and balanced reporting, that City continue to plead their innocence and have already lodged an appeal against the charges.
Indeed, we exclusively revealed last week, in conversation with a top sports lawyer, that the club could take the bid to clear their name all the way to the High Court.
Now, as the Premier League considers an appropriate punishment – which could range from a season-to-season points deduction, relegation out of the Premier League and down the EFL, and several multi-million-pound fines – the club has been warned about how demotion from the top flight will badly impact their finances and why their wage bill would be simply unsustainable in the Championship.
Per the i Paper, in conjunction with football finance expert Kieran Maguire, City would lose a projected half-a-billion per year for each season they’re out of the top flight.
The first and most obvious loss would come through broadcasting rights, which were worth £278.6m in the most recent accounts available, published for the year ending 30 June 2025.
That could drop to around £50m, including parachute payments, if they were to play in the Championship next season.
And while winning the Champions League this season would ensure they would earn the right to play in the competition next season, thus making up a large chunk of that loss, they would be hit with an estimated £225m reduction in broadcast revenue if they fall short.
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Man City fans will still turn up – but commercial deals will be hit
Matchday revenues would also be impacted. City posted £75.1m for 2024/25, and Maguire believes that would fall by £30-40m in the Championship, though he did make a promise about supporter loyalty.
“City fans will still turn up,” Maguire says. “That’s not an issue. We’ve seen that with West Ham. They get relegated, but the hardcore fanbase will remain.
“What Manchester City will struggle to do is to sell the boxes, to sell the experiences, to sell the Tunnel Club offerings at the prices which they’ve been charging this season. Because you can’t do it. You can’t do it at home to Swansea and expect to get the same money coming in as you have when you’ve got Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and so on.”
Upcoming ‘Tunnel Club’ – City’s top-of-the-range corporate matchday package – is a huge earner for the club, with tickets costing £870 per person against Ipswich Town for their clash on 17 October.
The biggest income loss for City, though, would come as a result of commercial deals, albeit they remain an unknown quantity as a result of those inflated figures the club claims they netted in those nine years between 2009 and 2018.
And while that period alleges that City’s recorded sponsorships were £949.94m (from 2009 to 2018), the Premier League ruled they were actually just £119.25m – an inflated sum of £830m.
However, since then, their commercial revenues have risen. And while it must be made clear that the period since 2018 is not under investigation as of the time of writing, the club did say they made £340.4m in 2024/25.
Per Maguire, sponsorship and commercial deals will suffer badly if City are not playing in the Premier League or Europe.
“Would Etihad Airways, for example, be willing to pay the same amount of money to Manchester City in the Championship? I guess you’d have to ask Etihad Airways that particular question,” Maguire says.
“So that would be the main hit. But I would imagine that other partners would want to move away.
“The average commercial revenue for a club in the Championship is probably around £10-20m. Manchester City would be a separate case because they are certainly big players, but even when Leeds United were in the Championship, to get around £30m of commercial revenue, you’re doing really well.
“Regardless, put those figures together, and it’s going to be a handbrake stop as far as revenues are concerned,” Maguire added.
An unsustainable wage bill in the Championship
City would also be unable to sustain their squad’s salaries in the second tier of English football were they to be relegated.
These have already altered dramatically this year by way of Pep Guardiola, Rodri and Bernardo Silva all moving on.
However, their projected annual wage bill of £408.4m in the 2024/25 season – per Maguire’s calculations – while it will already have reduced this summer, will simply be unsustainable outside the Premier League.
The SCR limit in the second tier grants clubs permission to spend 85% of their allowable income on player and manager-related costs.
“There’s an FFP catastrophe unless there is a huge exodus,” says Maguire, who notes the average Championship wage bill is £37m.
Only three Championship clubs had a wage bill north of £50m in 2024-25 – Leeds, Burnley and Sunderland – with Leeds top of the list on £102.7m.
To put into context, Erling Haaland alone earns £27m per year, based on his reported £525,000-a-week salary – a figure which would simply be unsustainable outside the Premier League – while other high earners, Enzo Fernandez (£18m), Phil Foden (£16m), Jeremy Doku (£15m), Gianluigi Donnarumma (£14m) and Marc Guehi (£14m), could not be kept on their current terms.
However, a leading sports lawyer has told TEAMtalk why City’s top stars simply cannot walk away from the club.
Nonetheless, TEAMtalk has already taken a look at where several of those stars could end up should City be forced into their reluctant sales.
IN-DEPTH
