City first British club to post £400m wage bill
Manchester City have revealed the price of last season’s historic Treble after becoming the first club in British football history to spend more than £400 million ($498m) on annual wages.
The reigning Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup champions have reported record revenues on £712.8m — an increase of £99.8m ($124m) on the previous year in the club’s Annual Report for the 2022-23 season. City’s profits increased to £80.4m from £41.7m the year prior.
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City continue to contest 115 Premier League charges, covering a nine-year period from 2009, for breaching the league’s financial fair play regulations.
The club’s rocketing wage bill saw salary costs, including the annual £45m salary of striker Erling Haaland, jump £69m to an overall £422.9m last season, despite the club employing 56 fewer football staff than the previous year.
City added Haaland, Julián Álvarez and Kalvin Phillips to their squad in the 2022 summer transfer window and offloaded Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko. The club’s salary costs were also increased by the payment of player bonuses following success in winning the three competitions last season.
In contrast to City’s record high wage bill, neighbours Manchester United reported an annual wage bill of £331.4m last month £91.8m lower than the salary costs at the Etihad Stadium.
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And by reporting revenues of £712.8m, City have also eclipsed the previous British record of £648.4m posted by United in their annual figures last month.
“The 2022-23 season saw Manchester City scale new heights and set new benchmarks,” City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, said in a statement.
“In short, last season saw Manchester City achieve the greatest football and commercial year of its storied history.”
City experienced growth over the previous year across all revenue streams of commercial, matchday and broadcasting.
Commercial revenues accounted for £341.4m, followed by broadcast at £299.4m and then matchday at £71.9m, for a profit of £80.4m, nearly doubling the previous year’s record profit of £41.7m.
Matchday revenue saw an increase of £17.4m (32%) with a 99% occupancy rate at the Etihad and four more home games played across all competitions, although the average attendance of 53,249 fans over 19 Premier League games was just shy of their record of 54,130 set in 2018-19.