City buck trend as English clubs cut back

Premier League clubs may be earning record sums but faced with rising debts and wages are largely avoiding buying star players before the new season gets underway, with Manchester City the main exception.

“Top transfer targets come with high wage demands,” said Wyn Grant, an expert in football business at Warwick University, central England.

“In the current economic climate and when you’re a club with debt it’s not advisable to have large amounts of your outgoings to go on these wages,” he told AFP.

For a second year running City easily stand top of the table in terms of pre-season spending on players and are on course to have splashed out more than 100 million pounds (120 million euros, 159 million dollars) by the time the new campaign starts on Saturday.

“We want to improve and we want to improve quickly,” said City manager Roberto Mancini.

“For this reason we have to buy,” explained the Italian, looking to add Aston Villa’s James Milner and Inter Milan’s Mario Balotelli to his squad.

During the close-season City have already spent a total of 60 million pounds on Spanish World Cup winner David Silva, Ivory Coast midfielder Yaya Toure and Germany defender Jerome Boateng, thanks to their wealthy Gulf-based owners.

City finished last season in fifth place, missing out on a lucrative Champions League spot but managed to finish above Liverpool, whose debt problems have resulted in only one major pre-season acquisition — Joe Cole from Chelsea on a free transfer.

But the Reds have so far managed to keep key players Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard amid mounting speculation Chinese businessman Kenny Huang is set to take over the club and wipe out Liverpool’s debt worth 237 million pounds.

Reigning champions Chelsea, last season’s runners-up Manchester United, third-placed Arsenal and Tottenham who secured the final Champions League spot by finishing fourth have also all been quiet in the transfer market.

Chelsea have signed Yossi Benayoun from Liverpool to replace Cole and United’s only major arrival has been Mexico striker Javier Hernandez.

Arsenal have bagged Moroccan international Marouane Chamakh on a free transfer and managed to hold onto Spain’s Cesc Fabregas after turning down multi-million pound bids from Barcelona for their young captain.

With a few weeks remaining until the transfer window shuts on August 31, leading Premier League clubs may add to their squads after being linked with numerous players from across the globe.

But Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson believes his side do not need to buy any more players.

“I don’t see the value in adding to our squad,” said the Scot, shrugging off suggestions United’s massive debts were behind their transfer inactivity.

“Supporters want you to buy players. They like to see a big signing every year … I look at the players everyone says are available and they don’t excite me.”

Last season’s 20 Premier League clubs are together expected to have earned record revenues of more than two billion pounds in 2009-10, according to Deloitte.

The global accountancy firm added in its latest annual survey on football finance that the coming season will see combined revenues rise even further to reach 2.2 billion pounds thanks to higher broadcasting fees.

But Premier League players’ combined wages hit a record high of 1.3 billion pounds in 2008-09 and are forecast to have risen even further since then.

“The record wages to revenue ratio of 67 percent in the Premier League in 2008/09 is a concern, and we expect wages growth to outstrip revenue increases again in 2009/10,” said Alan Switzer, director of Deloitte’s Sports Business Group.

“This will further reduce operating profitability, a decline that cannot continue indefinitely.

“However, clubs have the opportunity, via the revenue uplift from the new broadcast deals from 2010/11, to get wage levels down to a more sustainable share of revenue.

“It’s not the first such opportunity. It remains to be seen whether they grasp it,” he added in the recent report.