City Juggernaut Thunders Up The Rich League

Manchester City are not yet a Champions League club. But the Deloitte Football Money League European earnings rankings for 2009-10 reveal a leap of 10 places for The Blues...

It's a file under We're Not Really Here job again as City fans pinch themselves in the knowledge that The Citizens only battled out of English football's third tier in 1999. The club's rise from the ashes is meteoric.

A tremendous amount of hard work, blood sweat and considerable tears has been put in both at Maine Road and SportCity since Nicky Weaver's never to be forgotten Wembley penalty saves, resulting finally in the arrival of His Highness Sheikh Mansour which catapulted the club into the world spotlight.

As ever, the measure of City's progress will always be Saturday's opponents Manchester United. Rag supporters have witnessed their club's ability to operate unchallenged in the transfer market for years slowly become eroded to the point where despite their massive earnings, they are hopelessly unable to afford new players due to gargantuan debt.

City's revenues remain half of those of the rags. Yet in the previous year, they were a quarter of them. That represents stunning progress.

City Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak will take great heart from today's figures, knowing that City's stealth bomber of a transformation is now ready to move to the next level. The Blues have the potential ability to be able to hammer down losses in order to comply with UEFA's Financial Fair Play regulations, the FFP.

Deloitte Football Money League 2009-2010

(Previous season's positions bracketed:

1. (1) Real Madrid £438.6m
2. (2) Barcelona £398.1m
3. (3) Manchester United £349.8m
4. (4) Bayern Munich £323.0m
5. (5) Arsenal £274.1m
6. (6) Chelsea £255.9m
7. (10) Milan £235.8m
8. (7) Liverpool £225.3m
9. (9) Internazionale £224.8m
10. (8) Juventus £205.0m
11. (20) Manchester City £152.8m
12. (15) Tottenham Hotspur £146.3m
13. (11) Hamburg £146.2m
14. (13) Lyon £146.1m
15. (14) Marseilles £141.1m
16. (16) Schalke 04 £139.8m
17. (18) Atletico Madrid £124.5m
18. (12) Roma £122.7m
19. (n/a) Stuttgart £114.8m
20. (n/a) Aston Villa £109.4m


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