Not content with overhauling Arsenal to win a third consecutive Premier League title, Manchester City threw a grenade into the north London club's transfer plans.
Pep Guardiola felt like a useful ally to his former assistant Mikel Arteta last summer as City sanctioned moves to the Emirates Stadium for Oleksandr Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus that helped to elevate the Gunners into the realm of title challengers.
After over-performing last term, Arteta and sporting director Edu are determined to make big moves, with a swoop for Chelsea forward Kai Havertz close to completion.
Arsenal have also been casting admiring glances at West Ham captain Declan Rice for some time, meaning multiple reports that City entered the running for the England midfielder caused shockwaves.
The Athletic's David Ornstein reported that Arsenal have had two bids of £75 million with £15m in add-ons ($95.4m + $19.1m) rejected, with City pitching in with £80m and £10m in performance-based payments ($101.8m + $12.7m) on Monday night, although was similarly been turned down.
MORE: Should Arsenal sign Declan Rice or Moises Caicedo? Stats and positions assessed
Arsenal upping the ante to £100m ($140m + $6.4m) up front with £5m in top-up payments has seemingly persuaded City to walk away, but the saga showed the treble-winners were willing to operate close to the fee they paid to make Jack Grealish the most expensive British footballer in history in 2021, while Guardiola is reported to be eyeing a move in a similar ballpark for highly rated RB Leipzig defender Josko Gvardiol.
A year on from the transformative arrival of Erling Haaland, how do City do it? They remain a heavyweight transfer force, year in and year out in the Financial Fair Play era, despite having rubbed up uncomfortably against the authorities on a number of occasions regarding alleged breaches of those very rules.
How does FFP work?
A year on from City's takeover by the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), European football's governing body UEFA announced it would introduce Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations.
The basic premise was that clubs taking part in UEFA competitions would not be allowed to spend more than they earn in revenue, with the move motivated by several examples in the early 20th century of clubs such as Leeds United spending beyond their means and ultimately threatening their long-term survival when things went awry.
The rules were first implemented for the 2011/12 season. Parameters have been tweaked since, most notably to take into account the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
UEFA altered the FFP margins to allow clubs to incur losses of €60m ($65.5m) over a three-year period, up from the previous allowance of €30m grace.
In April 2022, UEFA announced that, from the 2025/26 season, clubs' spending on wages transfers and agents' fees would be capped at 70% of overall revenue.
The Premier League has its own version of FFP, which requires clubs to submit accurate financial information to the league annually, pay transfer fees and taxes on time and show that any losses can be adequately covered. The financial reporting structure is outlined in the Premier League handbook.
MORE: Everything you should know about Man City but have already made your mind up about
Man City transfer spending
ADUG's takeover of Manchester City in September 2008 altered the horizons of the club and English football as a whole. The Abu Dhabi ownership announced their intentions from the get-go with a £32.5m ($58.5m) move to make Real Madrid's Brazil star Robinho the most expensive player in Britain.
In the period since the takeover, only Chelsea have out-spent City among their Premier League counterparts and that owes much to Todd Boehly's unprecedented January splurge.
Premier League 'big six' spending since summer 2008
| Club | Transfer spending |
| Chelsea | £2.09bn ($2.66bn/€2.44bn) |
| Man City | £1.98bn ($2.52bn/€2.31bn) |
| Man United | £1.58bn ($2.01bn/€1.84bn) |
| Liverpool | £1.27bn ($1.61bn/€1.48bn) |
| Tottenham | £1.16bn ($1.47bn/€1.35bn) |
| Arsenal | £1.15bn ($1.46bn/€1.34bn) |
*data via transfermarkt.com
However, City are a different operation to the bombastic and chaotic upstart that signed Robinho, sacked Mark Hughes and rode to a first title in 44 years under Roberto Mancini, who could list packing Robinho off as one of his first acts as manager in January 2011.
ADUG is no more. Sheikh Mansour is still City's owner under his Newton Investment and Development vehicle. But the day-to-day operations are overseen by the City Football Group — a sprawling global network of football clubs with Man City at its heart and the brainchild of Chief Operating Officer Ferran Soriano.
Soriano was appointed at City in September 2012 and his overhaul of the club's structure goes beyond the CFG itself. In their most recent annual report, which was published in November 2022, City posted record revenue of £613m ($704m) and a profit of £41.7m ($47.6m).
They came top of the Deloitte Money League — an annual list of the top revenue-generating clubs in world football — for the second time in a row in 2023. Deloitte put City's revenues at €731m ($794m), above Real Madrid (€713.8m) and Liverpool (€701.7m) — a notable achievement given they only broke into the top five in 2015/16. "This growth has been fuelled by an increase in commercial revenue (up €65m to €373m in 2021/22), which is a new Premier League record," Deloitte said.
Forbes also highlighted City's impressive revenue figures in its list of the world's most valuable soccer teams, published on May 31, 2023. Despite being fifth in the valuation list at just under $5bn, City were acknowledged as having the highest revenues ($815m) and operating income ($175m) of any team in the top 30. A week later, the Brand Finance Football 50 Report named City as the world's most valuable football club brand, citing "a decade of dominance on the pitch and the highest revenue of any club in the report" as key factors.
MORE: Rodri's Champions League redemption
This is the context in which Guardiola is operating with his all-conquering side. Since his appointment in 2016, City (£574.54m/$731.29m) have the third highest net spend in the Premier League behind Manchester United (£778.74m/$991.20m) and Chelsea (£694.47m/$884.29m).
A large chunk of this was accounted for in the summer 2017 window, when the arrivals of Bernardo Silva, Kyle Walker, Ederson, Danilo and Benjamin Mendy helped Guardiola to move away from the long-established Mancini core at the Etihad Stadium and towards his own revolutionary brand of football. City duly won the title with 100 points.
Counting from the window preceding their domestic treble campaign of 2018/19, City's overall spending of £607.59m/$773.36m still comes in third behind Chelsea (£1.1bn/$1.4bn) and United (£676.54/$861.12m), but it is more closely aligned to Arsenal (£589.14/$749.88m) in fourth.
Over the same period, they have also recouped the second-largest amount of any club with £384.84m/$489.84m in sales. The departure of high-profile stars such as Jesus, Zinchenko and Raheem Sterling caught the attention last year, but talents honed at CFG clubs and produced by City's youth system also make up a steady income stream.
Since summer 2018, City's net spend is £230m/$292.75m, according to transfermarkt.com. Liverpool, whose market dealings under Jurgen Klopp have been rightly praised as they have offered sustained competition to Guardiola's juggernaut, have a net spend of £280m/$356.39m in the past five years.
Then there's the obvious but surprisingly overlooked fact that winning numerous competitions tends to net you an awful lot of prize money. The Telegraph reported that City's Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League treble would bring in a windfall just shy of £300m/$381.85m.
While the veracity of prize money and transfer fees should not cause too much debate beyond fridge internet conspiracy theorists, City's commercial income remains under the microscope —particularly in light of events earlier this year.
Man City Premier League charges
In February 2023, the Premier League referred Manchester City to an independent commission for over 100 alleged breaches of its competition rules.
Cries of "115 charges" have become a zinging, cast-iron argument-ender in the eyes of many an online wag, but a closer look at the Premier League statement laying out City's charges reveals that there are actually 130.
Racking up charges that run into three figures is the sort of headline-grabbing feat that no one at City should relish and it was surreal to see Premier League chief executive Richard Masters handing out winners medals in May to a club his organisation has accused of serial cheating.
The reality is that City will be tried on four major allegations covered by multiple sub-sections of the Premier League rulebook from 2009 to 2018. These are:
- Providing inaccurate financial information, in particular with respect to its revenue (including sponsorship revenue), related parties and operating costs between 2009/10 and 2017/18 (50 alleged breaches).
- Not providing accurate information on manager and player remuneration between 2009/10 and 2015/16 (20 alleged breaches).
- Failure to comply with UEFA’s Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play regulations between 2013/14 and 2017/18 (5 alleged breaches)
- Premier League profitability and sustainability rules between 2015/16 and 2017/18 (25 alleged breaches)
The final 30 charges relate to claims City failed to cooperate adequately with the Premier League's investigation, something that will sound familiar to anyone who followed the club's seismic case with UEFA that came to a head in 2020.
MORE: This is how it feels to be City: From Gillingham to Grealish in millions and memories
Man City UEFA ban: What happened?
The Premier League and UEFA launched investigations into City in the wake of November 2018 articles published by Der Spiegel, which drew upon the Football Leaks documents acquired by Portuguese whistleblower Rui Pinto.
In February 2020, UEFA announced City were banned from its competitions for two seasons for "serious breaches" of FFP rules. City appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and, in July of that year, the ban was overturned.
CAS found that City "did not disguise equity funding as sponsorship contributions" and that the alleged breaches of FFP rules were "either not established or time-barred".
City were still fined €10m ($10.95m) for the failure to cooperate with UEFA's investigation, behaviour that CAS noted should be "strongly condemned".
There is no time-barring element in Premier League rules or the option of recourse to CAS.
That was not the first time City were punished by European football's governing body. In 2014, City reached a settlement with UEFA in relation to FFP breaches. The club were fined €60m ($78m), €40m of which was subsequently refunded after complying with sanctions that included a reduced Champions League squad size and a spending cap for the 2014/15 season.
City reluctantly accepted the UEFA sanctions, which were among the first to be issued during the era of the governing body's new FFP rules. "In normal circumstances the club would wish to pursue its case and present its position through every avenue of recourse," City said. "However, our decision to do so must be balanced against the practical realities for our fans, for our partners and in the interests of the commercial operations of the club."
Paris Saint-Germain were also punished at the same time as City in 2014. Last year, eight clubs — including PSG, Inter, AC Milan, Juventus and Roma — were fined for failing to comply with UEFA's break-even requirement.
Premier League 2023/24 TV channels, live streams
| Region | TV | Streaming |
| Australia | — | Optus Sport |
| Canada | — | |
| Hong Kong | — | Now TV |
| India | Star Sports | Disney+, Hotstar, JioTV |
| Malaysia | Astro SuperSport | Astro Go |
| New Zealand | Sky Sport | Sky Sport Now, Sky Go |
| Singapore | StarHub | StarHub TV+ |
| UK | Sky Sports, TNT Sports | NOW TV, Sky Go, Amazon Prime |
| USA | USA Network, Telemundo, Universo |
Fubo, Peacock |
UK: Matches are carried across Sky Sports and TNT Sports streaming and TV platforms, with select matches on Amazon Prime.
USA: Select matches are televised on USA Network (English) and Telemundo or Universo (Spanish), and all three channels can be streamed on Fubo. The rest of the matches are streamed on NBC platform Peacock for subscribers.
Canada: Every Premier League game this season is live streamed exclusively via Fubo in Canada.
Australia: Fans in Australia can stream every match live and on demand on Optus Sport.
India: Star Sports network has the rights to show Premier League matches in India. As well as an English broadcast on Star Sports Select, select matches will be available via regional feeds on Star Sports 3 (in Bengali, English, Kannada, Malayalam), Star Sports 1 (Bangla) and Star Sports 1 (Tamil).