By David Owen
July 1 – One of the more salient details of Leroy Sané’s big money move to Bayern Munich may turn out to be the date on which news of the deal broke: June 30 – the last day of selling club Manchester City’s financial year.
This means, or so one must assume, that the meaty profit which the Premier League club will be able to book on the 24-year-old German’s departure can be included in the 2019-20 accounts, helping to offset the undoubted impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sané’s reported price-tag of around €49 million plus possible add-ons is not a huge amount more than the £37 million (again plus add-ons) for which he is said to have been bought from Schalke 04 in 2016. But the magic of amortisation means that City should make a substantial profit on the player nevertheless.
This is how it should work.
Sané saw out approximately four years of the five-year contract he is said to have signed with City. This means that his value in the club’s accounts should have been written down by around four-fifths to somewhere between about £7.5 million and £9.5 million. Deduct that from his new price-tag and what remains should approximate to the profit the Manchester club can book. This ought certainly to amount to well in excess of £30 million – a sum not to be sniffed at, even by Abu Dhabi-owned City.
While the club was the sixth-most profitable Premier League outfit in 2018-19, the most recent year for which figures are available, with a pre-tax profit of £10.1 million, it is worth bearing in mind too that City is currently waiting to learn whether the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport will lift a two-season ban on Champions League participation and €30 million fine imposed on it by UEFA in February.
The price reported to have been agreed between City and Bayern may also encourage speculation that the financial damage wreaked by coronavirus is set to have a dampening effect on the summer mercato for players.
The most recent valuation put on Sané by Transfermarkt, the specialist website, was £72 million, dated early April. The reported deal amounts to a discount of between 23.6% and 37.5% on that figure, depending on whether or not the add-ons are taken into account.
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