Manchester United are on track to become the first British club to earn a record half a billion pounds in a year.
The club announced record earnings of £133.8 million for the second quarter of the financial year on Thursday, an increase of 26 per cent from the figures at this time last year.
As a result of increased commercial, broadcasting and sponsorship revenue, United estimate that they will make £500-510 million this year alone.
Most notably, in this period, United have secured deals with Sina Sport to allow MUTV, the club’s in-house channel, to be broadcast in China while American company Columbia became the club’s official outdoor clothing partner.
During a conference call with investors, executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward assured investors that the academy is still an integral part of the structure. This comes as numerous changes have been made since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson, most notably the exit of Brian McClair, who took up a role at the Scottish Football Association.
Woodward said that major announcements concerning the academy would be made in the next few days:
The academy continues to be the heart of the club. Giving youth a chance is part of our philosophy, part of our DNA.
We took the opportunity last year of Brian McClair leaving to do a root and branch review of the academy. That is now complete and changes are under way. Announcements will follow in the following days.
Our key competitive advantages are that we have an unmatched track record of player development compared to any other team in England, and secondly, the runway we deliver of first team opportunities to those players coming through. That is very different to some of our competitors.
Woodward also added that United would not be able to build a winning side on the cheap. This came in response to questions that United’s business in the transfer market was questionable while Leicester City were currently working their way to the Premier League title with a fraction of the budget Louis van Gaal currently has.
He said:
Leicester is a fantastic reference point for everyone this year.
I think the philosophy we have is to target quality of players based on the huge amount of scouting that we do and analysis within the training ground and then we do our best to do the best deal we can.
Some players are bought by other clubs with an eye to them developing into something special in a few years’ time, whereas there’s more pressure on the bigger clubs to bring in players who are going to be hitting the ground running and top players, verging on world-class players, almost immediately so there is a slightly different market in which people are buying.
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