(FINANCIAL) ANARCHY IN THE UK

Last updated : 24 September 2002 By Editor

City’s turnover last season was £28 million pounds so you can’t blame them for heralding the £30 million they were lent by the American investment bank Bear Stearns yesterday as significant but when the deal is examined through red lenses it looks pretty poor.

In comparison United will receive £25 million a year from the Nike deal alone, that is pure cash input, not a mortgaging of the future ticket sales as in City’s deal with Stearns.

As we know only too well United appear on the TV more than any other PL club and that tips an additional £600,000 per game into the cash register and with the whole of November and December marked out for live televised football total TV revenue this season is set to outstrip last season’s record levels.

The truth is Keegan has lashed out £20 million plus this summer preparing a squad that can hold on to a Premier League spot and as we have reported in the fanzine Bernstein has been desperately traipsing around the City for some time trying to find someone who can lend them the money required. None of the press have gone into the detail of the deal but it is safe to assume that it won’t be as earth-shattering as Bernstein tried to make out in his press comments yesterday. Leeds United entered into a similar arrangement a few years back but their failure to qualify for the Champions League saw them having to offload Keane and Ferdinand this term.

The additional promise in City’s deal of access to an extra £14 million leads us to believe that any extra money is linked to success on the pitch. Ignoring the chest beating from the ‘blue army’, Bernstein would be more than happy with the trophyless levels of ‘success’ achieved by pig-face and Ridsdale at Leeds; whether it is enough to keep the financial wolves from the door only time will tell.

With the harbingers of doom declaring a decline in the United empire it is worth glancing over the shoulder to see how far behind our so called ‘rivals’ really are.

Despite the relative strength of United’s financial position the financial markets are continuing to mark down football stock with United’s shares now trading at their lowest ever levels hitting just 96.5p on Friday, in short the stockmarket believe the club is only worth £256 million, 40 per cent of Sky’s 1998 valuation.

Football - it’s a funny old game.

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