Manchester United are richer than Arsenal
When Manchester United announce their financial numbers from the 2006/07 season next month, they will be announcing record numbers in both profits and in turnover.
After the club had an excellent year on the pitch, winning the Premiership title and making the semifinals of the UEFA Champions League, along with making the FA Cup final, the club looks to have reaped the rewards off of it, which will make the Glazer family, David Gill, and Sir Alex Ferguson all quite happy. United are expected to announce profits of more than 60 million GBP and turnover of more than 200 million for the year ending June 30, both club records.
Last year, United had operating profits of 49.7 million GBP, which was an increase of 3.6 million from the previous year, and turnover last year was 165.4 million, up from 157.2 million in the previous period.
Last year’s figures, however, were hurt by United’s exit from the Champions League (and Europe completely) in the group stage, but were an improvement over the previous year, the club‘s last as a PLC, when Manchester United went without a trophy, finished third in the league, and exited the Champions League in the round of 16.
But, in the past year, the club greatly benefited from that run in the CL, their first Premiership title since 2002/03, and consistently maintaining high attendances in the expanded, 76,000-seat Old Trafford. Not spending exorbitantly on transfers was also beneficial, as the only big-money move was the transfer of Michael Carrick from Tottenham.
The huge profits mean that the Glazers’ goal of reaching profits of 108.9 million GBP by 2011 is attainable, providing the club experiences the same increase in profits for the next few years.
This projected announcement takes a little air out of Arsenal’s sails, after Arsenal announced turnover of more than 200.8 million GBP in September, along with operating profits of 51.2 million, leading to Arsenal fans and the press touting Arsenal as Britain‘s richest club at the time. However, it appears as if that title will last for only a short time.
Manchester United’s financial upswing could very well have them claim their place as the world’s richest club, though the figures have not yet been released for Real Madrid and Barcelona, who were rated as the world’s top two richest clubs last year.
It can also alleviate some concerns about the massive debt that the club has as a result of the Glazer takeover, because if United continue to rake in similar profits, that debt will be significantly lessened within a short period of time.
And, Manchester United can maintain their reputation and buying power in the transfer market. Because of the expected profits, Sir Alex Ferguson is now being linked with a January move for Bayern Munich’s Philipp Lahm, even after more than 50 million was shelled out on summer transfers Carlos Tevez, Anderson, Nani, Owen Hargreaves, and the permanent signing of goalkeeper Tomasz Kuszczak.
Looking ahead to next year’s profits, numbers should be high once again. If the club continues its challenge for a repeat as league champions and make another run deep in the Champions League, that will be a huge benefit for the coffers, along with likely high match day revenues, with Old Trafford having no issues with being filled despite an increase in ticket prices that angered quite a few patrons (prices that are still lower than many clubs in the league). And, with a considerable amount coming in from the transfers out of Alan Smith, Giuseppe Rossi, Kieran Richardson, and Gabriel Heinze - and potentially Wes Brown or others to come before all is said and done.
You can never get too excited (like Arsenal), however, because you never how things can change from one year to another. But these numbers bode well for the future, without a doubt.
Update: More information here - Manchester United turnover is now 40m more than Arsenal’s.
“You can never get too excited (like Arsenal), however, because you never how things can change from one year to another. But these numbers bode well for the future, without a doubt”.
So an annual turnover of £200.8m is nothing to get excited about? Keeping in mind that Arsenal had a relatively poor season on the pitch, the financial figures were sill highly impressive.
Of course Man U will earn more than Arsenal when they reach the semi-final of the CL and win the PL, along with having the biggest stadium of all PL teams.
A more frightenning prospect is what Wenger will be able to do now when he actually has money to spend and doesn´t need to sell players in order to raise transfer funds.
Just a couple of questions:
1. According to the article, the profits were boosted by only a single large transfer, Michael Carrick. Will not the substantial sums spend on Hargraves, Nani and Nani. And isn’t Tevez a loan deal, albeit a very expensive one.
2. Do these figures take into account the revised TV revenues? Arsenal’s did not.
3. Is this a figure before interest and tax? Both Man United and Arsenal have significant debt but I would suspect that as a consequence of both the amount and the rate, Man United have a significantly higher burden. Don’t forget they unsuccessfully tried to refinance a short while back. You don’t do that if you are already paying a great rate. And what will the financial turmoil we have all witnessed of late, I wouldn’t be surprised if the interest charges had increased significantly.
So, lets wait and see if they release the accounts (as a private company they are not required to do so) and make a better judgement then.
As we are talking about football clubs here, the best measure is how they perform on the pitch. Probably the 2 best teams in the EPL are Arsenal and Man United.
Not forgetting that season ticket holders are force to paid for games that they did not want.
Sir you are a tit, whats a few million either way when you have Sir Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal are going to be kicking your arses for years to come regardless of how rich you are.
so?
Yup folks!thats right!love the heading.
It is not like we (Arsenal) have a massive debt burden, resulting in over 10% ticket price increase in 2 years. Destroying the waiting list and forcing people to pay for games they do not want to watch.
Arsenal is still for the fans. Unlike ManUSA. The real fans have deserted you (rightfully so) and are supportin an independent club (FC United). Those fans ARE the beautiful game. In this day and age, it is vital that we more than ever remember that.
Of course Man u’s rich. Why else would the Glazers with their huge debts merge all their assets together? Which single entity in the Glazers’ stable do you think is absorbing the debts? You dont have to be a genius to figure that one out do you? And come on, after so many league titles in the last 10 years, and with the largest stadium in UK, they better make all those profits…………
Man I am so tired about people bitching about ticket prices. Let me put it into retrospective. You can buy a good season ticket for ManUTD for 600-700 pounds, which is $1,400. I live in LA and the only sport I will go to is NHL “Kings”(which are the cheapest compare to NBL and NFL) and their cheapest season ticket is $3,000-3,500, and let’s not forget that Kings are one of the worst teams in NHL and ManUTD are the best in EPL. And that FC United thing is so stupid, if you want to watch a low level game just watch the High school leags or amature ones, I am sure you got them.
well done Man U.
Och thats a nice wee bit of south african thigh, lassie
I agree with Taron. I live in Montreal and season tickets to the Canadians (one of the best teams in the history of hockey) can go as high as 6,000$.
What’s up with all the envy, dear Gunners? I agrre the article was a little provocative, but then so are all the ones about Arsenal. Get over it: Man Utd are richer, our tickets are not as expensive as yours and we spend money on players. It is good if you are the Glazers, but as fans we should not really care how much money our club makes. We should be concerned with the quality of football and, to some extend, the transfer budget.
Chelsea are richer than both of them
End of
Reply to ArseneWanker. Your comparison is unfair. You should compare Arsenal to only one of our players Giggs. His achivements surpess Arsenal’s during their entire history.
Thx 4 reminding me! Now,come 2 think of it,it’s true!
Where in heaven’s name is this guy concuting these figures from?
As of January 2007. I find VERY difficult to believe the author;s post….
As of January 2007, Manchester United has released some profit numbers for their last financial year.
Here are the numbers - ($) - they released with the previous year’s results in brackets.
Revenue $331 million ($315 million)
Operating profit $98 million ($92 million)
Profit before tax $62 million ($22 million)
Operating profit usually relates to normal transactions, while profit before tax would take into “unusual†items such as transfer fees. Hence, one of the reasons why the profit before tax has increased so much is that the $24 million received from Chelsea from the transfer of John Obi Mikel was included.
As they are now a privately held company, Manchester United is not required to publish financial statements, but it seems that they certainly want to leave the impression that their financial house is in order.
All seems well, except for the issue of interest payments on the debt that the Glazer family has assigned to the club. You may remember that in July 2006 the Glazer family secured a refinancing deal that saw the interest payments dropped from hundred and $180 million a year to $124 million a year - a substantial saving.
However at the same time, the overall borrowings of the club increased from $1.16B to $1.32B an increase of $160 million. So how come borrowings went up so dramatically?
Without detail financial statements it is impossible to say what exactly was done so I freely admit to a bit of speculation. Could it be because the Glazer family opted to capitalize the interest payments incurred during the first year of operations? (It is the equivalent of opting to not pay interest on your mortgage but rather adding it to your principal - so you pay interest on interest).
We can’t tell for sure from the results released, but it would certainly explain why interest payments of approximately $180 million don’t appear to have shown up in last year’s financial results.
If the interest payments were capitalized it is not a trick that can be turned every year and a charge of $124 million will surely show up in next year’s accounts.
However, it is difficult to see how the club is going to stay in the black with such a crippling level of debt and interest repayments.
man utd was the richest club for some years before takeover.and have the biggest fan base in world
GLORY GLORY MAN UNITED!!!!!!!!!!
245m
some ppl dnt get dat clubs are ranked who is richer by their profits and revenues nd stuff..not how mch money is in the bank account of the owners..yeah go compare the revenues and profits of man unitd to chelsea nd den come bak nd tlk u fools who think chelsea are richer pfft
An interesting post, with an eye-catching heading.
Except that ManU made profits of £50m, but owe £650m due to the leveraged debt that the Glazier’s took out to buy the club.
At the risk of simplifying this a bit, that’s like bragging to your mate, “Look, I’m rich, I’ve got 50 squids in my pocket” when behind the scenes, you owe another mate 650 squids.
Even your own supporters don’t back up your article, visit http://www.joinmust.org/thefacts/theirdebt.php and you will see what I mean.
Laughable, really - and I dare you to publish this posting.
DJ - the debt has nothing to do with profits - you’re trying to imply that they used the debt to boost their profits, which is quite stupid.