Manchester City’s CEO has rubbished claims that the club has bought success, claiming that Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United have all spent more.
The Sky Blues have never been afraid of investing heavily in the transfer market, with big money spent during the reign of owner Sheikh Mansour. City did break the British transfer record when signing Jack Grealish for £100 million ($124m) in the summer of 2021, but have tended to seek out value in congested markets rather than cherry-pick the best talent available.
Domestic rivals have followed that lead, with Chelsea splashing out around £600m ($747m) in the space of the last 12 months, and Ferran Soriano is eager to avoid any suggestion that a 2022-23 treble bid at the Etihad Stadium is built around nothing more than boasting the deepest pockets.
Soriano has told Movistar after seeing City book a date with Inter in the 2023 Champions League final: “Look, you only have to look at the investment in players in England in the last year, three years, five years… we are never the club spending the most on players. There are many other clubs investing more money than us – Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal. Saying that we’ve spent a lot of money and we won because of that is just not true.”
