How powerful was Man City's transfer spending between 2009 and 2018?

[Getty Images] Manchester City spent about £1.2bn on new players in the transfer windows between summer 2009 and January 2018. In that time, the club won seven major trophies - three Premier Leagues, one FA Cup and three EFL Cups - having previously gone without a significant honour since 1970. The players they purchased during that time included some of the world's best. Multiple were signed for figures in the tens of millions and made a huge contribution to the club's consistent success. The graphic below demonstrates how much Manchester City spent each summer across the whole time period and contrasts it with the amount of money that the commission determined had been falsely pumped into the club by its owners, under the guise of sponsorship income. [BBC] The club did not only generate revenue from sponsorship funds in that time. Income is spent on many things other than transfers, including player wages, utilities, insurance, infrastructure, marketing, foundations and more. But the figures underline the fact that Manchester City simply wouldn't have been able to purchase the quantity and quality of players they signed during their era of domination had they not been conducting what the commission described as a "concerted campaign to falsify" their financial accounts. If their financial power had been slashed by the extra £830m the commission says they falsely added to their books, their transfer spend would surely have been massively reduced. Chop the amount in half, say, and maybe they would have only brought in half the amount of players or the same amount of players just heavily reduced in quality. That potentially means no Sergio Aguero, David Silva, Yaya Toure or Kevin de Bruyne, all of whom were key cogs in the club's trophy-winning machine. [BBC] Would those successes have been achieved had the rule breaking not been going on in tandem? And what would the impact have been on all the other clubs who have played in the Premier League during that time? Nobody will ever know because the seasons cannot be replayed. The era provided the foundation for Manchester City's ongoing success too, meaning more trophies and TV income, and the chaos of the situation has also unleashed doubt about the present and future. Read the full article here