Manchester City have encountered a perfect storm on the pitch this season and it has also felt like that in the stands
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LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 25: Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Chairman of Manchester City and Ferran Soriano, CEO of Manchester City look on before the Emirates FA Cup Final match between Manchester City and Manchester United at Wembley Stadium on May 25, 2024 in London, England. (Photo by Eddie Keogh - The FA/The FA via Getty Images)
City CEO Ferran Soriano and chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak(Image: 2024 The FA)
The job of any CEO in football is to make as much money in football, and Ferran Soriano at Manchester City has done it better than most. Since arriving in 2013, he has seen the club's revenues more than double during a period of unprecedented sporting success and stadium expansion (and yes, extremely serious financial accusations from the Premier League that began before he started but are said to have continued until 2018).
Soriano believes in taking the emotion out of what is an emotional sport in order to make the best decisions, and is constantly looking at ways in which City can get more for their money. As a player trading model, buying players before they have hit their peak is both cheaper than ready-made superstars in the short term and ensures more profit in the long-run.
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That model has helped to grow broadcast revenues as City have played more matches across the world and grown in reputation, and has also attracted more sponsorship revenue. Again, a balance has to be struck as the right sponsor may not be the one that pays the most but the best all-round package in terms of image.
The third pillar of making money at the football club is matchday revenue. This has grown steadily in recent years but is easily the smallest pile. In the 2024 figures, it accounted for £75.6m (up from £51.4m in two years) compared to broadcast (£294.7, up from £249.1m) and commercial (£334.7m, up from £309.4m).
As well as being the smallest, matchday revenue is the most delicate to balance.
Sell all your seats at the highest price possible and you can attract tourists and make the most money...but if the 'prawn sandwich brigade' don't fancy Leicester at home on a Wednesday night those seats will go unsold. Ask your 37,000 season ticket holders to pay more each year, as has happened consistently every year, and you are taxing the poorest part of the club whose income doesn't necessarily go up at the same rate.
What's more, the higher the prices go the less affordable it is for the core fanbase who make the stadium the attraction that it is - and that risks impacting on broadcast and commercial income. It is telling that Dortmund with its Yellow Wall is more popular for football tourists in Germany than Bayern Munich despite the latter usually winning the league.
Third party sites and hospitality
Global demand for City tickets has shot up with their success and the arrival of superstars, including manager Pep Guardiola and striker Erling Haaland. The arrival of Uzbekistan defender Abdukodir Khusanov has seen a surge in ticket sales in his home country of 35 million people as fans travel thousands of miles to see their new heroes in action in an increasingly global market.
Plenty of fans are willing to pay more for a premium experience, and City - like most other top sides - give tickets to authorised partners who can provide that. There are eight listed on the club site, including companies in Ireland, Israel, and the United States.
For a standard Champions League game, these sites get about 550 tickets - a tenth of the total hospitality figures - and offer a range of packages. Some includes off-site meals at Manchester restaurants Vermillion or Tast, although even tickets for hospitality at Joe's, 1894, Kits or 93:20 that offer a complimentary drink and programme at best are on sale for anywhere from £250 to £380 for upcoming matches.
"These clubs all have their official approved resellers because that allows fans to recycle tickets when they can’t make matches. That is quite common," football finance expert Kieran Maguire told the Manchester Evening News. "I wasn’t aware City had eight - that’s unusual - but given you’re looking at international markets perhaps that makes sense. There is logic in that and the important thing ultimately is that tickets get sold and that there are bums on seats.
"Football is now a tourist attraction as far as this country is concerned. If you are a football fan of a club - and some clubs are bigger brands than others - by the time you factor in the cost of your hotel, merchandise, flights, the cost of your tickets isn’t that bad."
There is every chance those tickets are bought by City fans, either regular matchgoers fancying an upgrade or those making a trip of it and willing to pay extra. The Etihad should not be closed to any Blue regardless of how many games they have been to or where they are from, and new faces should always be welcome.
However, one of the problems with third party sites are that the checks to make sure it is City fans buying the tickets are less strict. Of the eight official sellers that work with City, only five even mention that opposition fans or opposition colours are not allowed.
There are still checks to go through, from a ticket compliance officer employed by the club since 2024 to stewards at the stadium looking out for away colours, but it is problematic that it is easier for opposition fans to buy tickets in hospitality simply by using an official partner of the club.
Ticket touts
Then there are the unauthorised third-party sites, which are an even bigger problem. Type in 'Man City tickets' on Google and the top three results below the club are all unauthorised.
Over at livefootballtickets.com you can get six together for the Leicester game on the bottom tier of the Colin Bell Stand for just £97.50 a ticket - a huge mark-up on the standard price while seatpick.com can offer six in either the home end or hospitality in 13 different sections of the ground.
How they get these tickets is a mystery but the best guesses are that these websites abuse the matchday membership whereby paying £35 for the season allows you to buy a returned ticket.
The club have worked with fan groups to work out the most sensible purchasing criteria before games and have banned 165 accounts this season for touting with a further 354 suspended and 223 closely monitored - but these sites do not appear to be in any danger of being closed down while it is unclear where they are getting their tickets.
"We need questions around that. It’s well and good that we have robust security procedures but ultimately once those [away fans] are in the ground we’ve already failed," said Alex Howell, head of official fan board City Matters. "In terms of things like security, it’s tricky. Staff and stewards largely do a good job but it's difficult for them to go wading into what can be an intimidating situation.
"It’s being a bit more pro-active, so conversations around the official resellers and whether we should be having those, taking on board fan feedback on things like the all games on sale, more rigorous criteria for league games so there isn’t a huge free-for-all in the summer.
"That makes it challenging to ensure that tickets end up with City fans, and it's also not great from a fan experience point of view. Those are the sort of things that would be helpful.
"These issues are happening across the league, but it’s a culmination of a lot of these wider issues. All games on sale in the summer, most league home games have little if any criteria and we have over 140,000 members, and there's also the big question of ticket pricing.
"It’s hard for the club to manage who’s in that, as we saw in the Plymouth game [when hundreds of tickets bought in the home end were cancelled after club checks]." That was proactive action, albeit they did catch some City fans in that and it’s important that they learn from it. Results on the pitch, ticketing policies and criteria. It’s very nuanced."
Perfect storm
Third-party sites are made into a bigger issue than they could be because of matchday membership, and matchday membership can contribute to the problem.
At best, it is the perfect way for new fans to attend games but £35 can be a price that fans of Plymouth, Liverpool, or even Real Madrid - they have been to the Etihad for four consecutive years, after all - are willing to pay on top of a match ticket.
It can be hard to stop an opposition fan who is determined enough to get into the home end, and the issue can be compounded if - as has happened this season - City are not playing well as an opposition goal increases the safety risk inside the home ends.
This was the case for the Real and Liverpool games this season in two away victories, whereas there were plenty of Real fans in the home end for the 2023 game but they had little to shout about in a 4-0 defeat.
If you add in apathy or reality caused by increased ticket prices generally - City fans paid more for the Champions League this season despite seeing two fewer rounds - any reduced appetite from supporters who normally attend games exacerbates the issue further as it means there are even more tickets available that could be open to abuse.
Regular matchgoers don't love the fact that it costs more and more to support the team, they don't love the fact that the club makes a profit on their ticket if they return it, and they certainly don't love the prospect of their seat in the home end going to an away fan.
That all leads to an atmosphere such as Brighton on Saturday, when Guardiola's call for the fans to help the team over the line in Champions League qualification fell on deaf ears. The club will open new seats to the stadium when the expanded North Stand is ready in the second half of next season, yet the discontent is such that plenty are thinking about whether they want to keep going to such expense.
With an announcement coming on season tickets for next season, if Soriano and the club cannot get the balance right with all the various factors, it will cost them more than once.