Kieran Maguire: Man City match Chelsea after £40m deal completed
Man City are replicating Chelsea’s model of developing young players and selling them for profit to help their FFP calculations.
That is the view of finance expert Kieran Maguire, who spoke exclusively to Football Insider about City’s sale of academy players this summer, including Cole Palmer’s move to Stamford Bridge.
Palmer made the switch from City to Chelsea in a £40million move on deadline day.
The 21-year-old joins a long list of academy stars to have left City in recent windows with James Trafford and Shea Charles also leaving Pep Guardiola’s squad this summer.
Maguire explained that City’s academy sales are significant for FFP purposes because players from a club’s youth system provide immediate profit on the balance sheets.
“Man City have replicated the Chelsea model in terms of developing young talent,” Maguire told Football Insider’s Sean Fisher.
“The investment in youth and facilities available both in the form of the academy and the education to players is very attractive for both players and the families of players who want to become professionals.
“As a result of that, City probably have more players than they need and so they have been using the exceptional talent coming through the academy such as Cole Palmer as a means of generating further revenues.
“Chelsea have done this very successfully in recent years, and Man City are now replicating the model.
“It is a further advantage that academy players have a cost of £0 as far as the balance sheet is concerned.
“So all sales count as immediate profit which helps significantly in FFP calculations.“
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