Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger certainly had a very newsworthy press conference on Thursday. During the session, he managed to take a swipe at Manchester City’s transfer practices, praise how Manchester United does business, give an update of sorts on the Alexis Sanchez-Henrikh Mkhitaryan transfer situation and raise the ire of Borussia Dortmund due to his comments on Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
He accomplished a lot in a very small space!
If you follow studies that are conducted on global football roster spending, there seems to be a general belief that while both Manchester clubs have been spending money like water in recent years, City seems to do it more efficiently, creating a roster with value, while United has engaged in disjointed, wasteful spending.
No matter how true or not you believe those ideas to be, they are popular beliefs. Wenger however, threw shade at City’s transfer business practices while praising how Old Trafford approaches the transfer market.
“I respect Manchester United because they generate the money they pay to the players with their own resources so you have to respect that,” Wenger responded when asked about the Alexis Sanchez to Manchester united transfer situation.”
“After that it’s down to them to know how much they want to give to the player. Overall, United are a club very well managed financially and of course as well on the pitch so that’s why I don’t have any problems with the money they pay.”
That was a not so thinly veiled shot at City, for their past violation of UEFA financial fair play rules.
Both Manchester clubs are obviously known for splashing the cash. United are reportedly set to make Sanchez the highest paid player in English football history, should the deal be finalized. They also broke the world individual player transfer fee record for Paul Pogba in the summer of 2016, but that milestone has already been surpassed three more times since that deal.
Manchester City currently have the highest roster valuation in all of Europe, and they can also boast the greatest cumulative transfer net spend over the past six years. Since 2008, the club has been owned by Sheikh Mansour, one of the world’s wealthiest individuals, with an estimated individual net worth of at least £17 billion.
Mansour bought the club in ’08 for £210 million, and has since accumulated annual losses of £535 million.
However the value of the club has soared nearly fivefold from £210 million in 2010 to £900 million in 2015 according to Forbes.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune corporation blogging community Chicago Now.
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