How relegation could cost Man City over £500m

Manchester City face a financial fair play (FFP) “catastrophe” if they are expelled from the Premier League. With the club, who continue to deny any wrongdoing, awaiting punishment and some rivals calling for relegation, modelling a potential drop to the Championship shows their annual revenue could fall by more than £500m. Together with football finance expert Kieran Maguire, The i Paper explores the finer details of that projected half-a-billion loss, as well as the implications of their superstars hypothetically staying put to play EFL football. The £500m-plus drop in revenue explained Champions League and Championship? It could happen in theory (Photo: Getty) City’s broadcasting revenue for the year ending 30 June 2025, the latest accounts available, was £278.6m. That could drop to around £50m, including parachute payments, if they were to play in the Championship next season. One caveat would be City potentially winning the Champions League, ensuring they qualify for that competition the following campaign and earn TV money in that regard. However, if City fail to win the Champions League, they can expect an estimated £225m reduction in broadcast revenue. In terms of matchday revenue, City posted £75.1m for 2024-25, and they could see that fall by £30-40m in the Championship. “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 tickets cost £870 per person against Ipswich Town on 17 October, and £1,000 for their league meeting with Brighton & Hove Albion on 31 October. Sponsorship deals in the spotlight The biggest potential hit comes in the form of commercial revenue but that also remains the greatest unknown – particularly after the commission ruled City recorded sponsorships of £949.94m over the nine-year period (from 2009 to 2018) when the sums paid were only £119.25m. Their annual commercial revenue has risen since 2018. They made £340.4m in 2024-25, and the burning question would be which sponsors stick with City if their appeal is unsuccessful and they 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 about £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.” A £300m drop in commercial revenue would take City’s overall fall in revenue closer to £600m. The £500m estimate would still have the club bringing in more than £100m commercially, five to 10 times more than the average Championship club. “Regardless, put those figures together and it’s going to be a handbrake stop as far as revenues are concerned,” Maguire adds. Wages could lead to FFP ‘catastrophe’ England defender Marc Guehi is among City’s top earners (Photo: Getty) City already had a transformational summer this year with Rodri, Bernardo Silva and John Stones among the players following head coach Pep Guardiola out the door. It is highly probable, therefore, that their wage bill of £408.4m from the 2024-25 season – per Maguire’s Valuball calculations – has already come down, although not significantly. If the Championship awaits, the huge loss in revenue would mean another summer of change is required next year to comply with the EFL’s Squad Cost Rules (SCR). The SCR limit allows Championship clubs to spend 85 per cent 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. Erling Haaland alone earns £27m per year, based on his reported £525,000-a-week salary, and you need only add City’s next five highest earners in Enzo Fernandez (£18m), Phil Foden (£16m), Jeremy Doku (£15m), Gianluigi Donnarumma (£14m) and Marc Guehi (£14m) to surpass that Leeds total. Put simply, if those six players alone stayed on their current wages, City’s income would need to be more than £120m to stay within the 85 per cent SCR limit. What about relegation clauses? Relegation clauses would aide City’s cause, but their players do not have them in their contracts according to The Athletic’s David Ornstein, who said that is “because they’ve never been countenancing that day coming, because they’ve always protested their innocence”. Typically, relegation clauses can reduce player salaries by 50 and upwards to 90 per cent. Were City to begin life in the Championship next season, and their star players wanted to stay, it may require contract renegotiations with reduced salaries. That may well separate those fighting for the badge and those chasing a paycheque, although for now it remains a hypothetical scenario. Read more Daniel Storey: 27 things that have fried my brain since Man City’s verdict Pete Hall: Yes, Man City broke the rules. But the rules are also a nonsense Talk will rumble on, and just as City duo Haaland and Ruben Dias appeared to discuss the matter when Norway played Portugal last weekend, whispers behind mouths and fevered speculation will only continue until a punishment is handed out. Oh, and then comes the inevitable appeal. It may be years before any punishment is final, therefore, but certainly if the last, irrevocable, unappealable decision is at least one season away from the Premier League, City face a whole new battle with their accounts.