City FALL one place in the rich list.

The latest football rich list from Deloitte is due for publication shortly and perhaps one of the surprises of their findings is that City, despite increasing their income, have dropped one place behind Spurs. But fear not.

On the face of it, this is a bit of a shock, but not so when you realise the reasons. The figures basically cover last season's income when Spurs managed to reach the last 8 of the Champions League and City reached the last 16 of the Europa League.

The current rankings are shown in the list below.

Rank - Previous rank - Club - Income (£millions) - Previous income

1 (1) Real Madrid 433.0 (356)
2 (2) Barcelona 407.0 (331.8)
3 (3) Manchester Utd 331.4 (291.5)
4 (4) Bayern Munich 290.3 (269.2)
5 (5) Arsenal 226.8 (228.5)
6 (6) Chelsea 225.6 (212.5)
7 (7) Milan 212.3 (196.5)
8 (9) Internazionale 190.9 (187.4)
9 (8) Liverpool 183.6 (187.8)
10 (16) Schalke 04 182.8 (116.5)
11 (12) Tottenham H 163.5 (121.9)
12 (11) Manchester City 153.2 (127.3)
13 (10) Juventus 139.0 (170.8)
14 (15) Marseilles 135.8 (117.6)
15 (18) Roma 129.6 (102.3)

*List taken from 'the Independent'
**Figures from last year's report taken directly from Deloitte and converted from Euros to Pound Sterling

The figures highlight several things, like Real and Barca's ability to negotiate their own TV deals sees them increase the gap between everyone else, Champions League football really is that important to revenue, as well as other things. But we'll focus on City.

It is believed that the combination of revenue from Champions League football and the record breaking sponsorship deal with Etihad will see City move into the top 10 this time next year. You can see an overview of City's previous year's finances and a predicted accounts HERE.

There is another thing that City have in their locker that the likes of Liverpool, Chelsea and Spurs don't currently have. The ability to expand their stadium. It has been touched on elsewhere this morning and at this moment in time those 3 clubs are potentially facing stagnation, or even a reversal in fortunes due to their inability to expand.

There have been rumours for at least 12 months about plans to increase the capacity City's home ground to around 60,000, and with tickets for every home league game of City's selling out this season the Sheikh may be looking at putting that into practise sooner rather than later. As long as City have continued top 4 success with regular Champions League football along with the odd trophy thrown in for good measure, There is no reason why City couldn't climb even higher up the list in coming years.




Twitter: @MikeWalshmcfc or @mcfcDSLeftFoot.
Facebook: David Silva's Left Foot