Blues rake in £3.9m from players at World Cup
CITY will receive a £3.9m windfall from their stars’ involvement in the World Cup finals.
The Blues top the list of clubs who will be compensated by Fifa for providing players for the tournament.
City had 16 players in Russia, which means they set a new record alongside Real Madrid, who had the same number involved in the competition.
Fifa introduced a compensation scheme for clubs in 2010 to recognise the problems a summer tournament can create.
The fact England, Belgium and France reached the last four means the Blues are likely to be without Kevin de Bruyne, Vincent Kompany, John Stones, Raheem Sterling, Kyle Walker, Fabian Delph and Benjamin Mendy for the Community Shield and possibly for the Premier League opener at Arsenal.
The compensation amount has been beefed up considerably from £30m at the last World Cup to £158m for this one.
The amount each club receives depends on the number of players they have at the tournament, starting two weeks before it kicks off, and how far those players progress.
It works out at roughly £6,445 per player for every day they spend with the international squad, from a fortnight before the start of the tournament to their elimination.
Real get a smaller share because the early exit of Spain and Brazil meant they only had France’s Raphael Varane and Croatia pair Luka Modric and Mateo Kovacic in the last four, compared to City’s haul of seven.
That meant the Blues’ share is the biggest of any club, at around £3.9m, with Madrid receiving £3.85m. AFTER months of teasing over Jorginho, City fans will not even get the satisfaction of seeing the Italian midfielder at the Etihad every week.
The move may have been ‘imminent’ but, amid all the usual noise that goes on with transfers, there was expectation on all sides that it would happen.
That it has not, with Chelsea signing the player, is shocking enough - think Dani Alves or Alexis Sanchez but in a more crucial position in the City team. The sucker-punch, delivered by Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis, suggested it was not wrangling over bonuses or other negotiations that had scuppered the deal but simply that Jorginho prefers London life over anything Manchester can offer. Ouch! But if it is galling to suggest that Europa League football at Chelsea albeit with his former manager Maurizio Sarri - is better than the promise of scintillating football at a stable club with the best manager in the world, it also goes against the conduct of Jorginho and his agent for some time.
Personal terms were agreed with City weeks ago and there are on-record comments detailing the player’s admiration for Guardiola and what a dream move it would be. As late as Thursday, those close to the player were still suggesting he wanted a move to the Etihad.
Whether those words or De Laurentiis’s on Wednesday contain more truth will ultimately explain how the whole thing unravelled to the point where Chelsea hijacked the deal.
Ultimately, though, City won’t care about the whys or hows as much as the ‘what next’?
The club have adapted a clear transfer policy in recent windows of trying not to overpay, relying on the will of players to play under Guardiola in Manchester (and stillconsiderable sums of money) to get in the right profile of new signings, even if it has meant missing out on some stars.
The pros and cons of such a stance can be debated elsewhere, but it leaves City with a major hole in their squad.
Yaya Toure’s departure, while completely reasonable, reduces the cover and ageing superstar Fernandinho has been bombarded with death threats after Brazil’s loss to Belgium in the World Cup.
Having gone cold on Fred in January to allow United to step in, Guardiola is no closer to landing Fernandinho’s successor after the spectacular U-turn with Jorginho.
Southampton’s Mario Lemina and Real Madrid’s Mateo Kovacic had already been identified as potential alternatives long before the saga played out, although neither look to be the ideal fit for the team and squad that the Napoli midfielder was.
City have indicated they have no plans to chase anyone else.
Kyle Walker, Danilo and Riyad Mahrez all prove that City will not fall apart just because certain transfers do and Guardiola has constructed a squad at the Etihad greater than the sum of its parts.
But having identified a holding midfielder as key to this window, there is now less than a month for the Blues to recover from missing out on Jorginho and bring somebody in if they are to make that point again and not suffer a major disappointment.