Blues cash in on academy stars to tune of £71m
CITY have sold £71m worth of academy players and graduates over the past four seasons – despite none of them having made more than 10 senior appearances for the club.
An investigation into academy player transfers by M.E.N. Sport has revealed how in the modern game academies are operating as ‘cash factories’ as much as sources of future first-team players.
Over the past four seasons, the top flight’s six biggest clubs – Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, City, United and Tottenham – have brought in a transfer fee for 42 academy players who made 10 or fewer appearances for the first team.
Those fees came to a total of £113.7m.
More than half of that total, £65m, came from 22 players who’d never played for the selling club’s first team.
City’s academy sales account for almost two thirds of the overall total – £70.7m – with some £45m of that total coming from the sale of players who hadn’t made any starts for the first-team.
The most high profile of those is Jadon Sancho.
The 18-year-old winger declined a new contract at City in favour of an £8m move to Borussia Dortmund summer.
Sancho has been in fine form for his new club, scoring twice and contributing 12 assists in his 22 appearances for the club so far.
He was rewarded with a first senior City academy sales in last four seasons: ANGUS GUNN £13,500,000 JASON DENAYER £11,822,876 RONY LOPES £9,000,000 PABLO MAFFEO £8,100,000 JADON SANCHO £8,000,000 ANGELINO £5,000,000 OLIVIER NTCHAM £4,500,000 SEKO FOFANA £3,800,000 KARIM REKIK £3,500,000 TYRESE CAMPBELL £1,750,000 RODNEY KONGOLO £750,000 JOSE POZO £600,000 BOBBY DUNCAN £200,000 JORDY HIWULA £150,000 last England call-up this month and made his debut against Croatia last week. At the time, the £8m fee raised a few eyebrows given Sancho’s lack of first-team experience. However, he is far from being City’s most lucrative academy graduate not to have established themselves in the senior side. Angus Gunn cost Southampton a reported £13.5m this summer despite him not having made his first-team debut for City. In August, Jason Denayer cost Lyon £11.8m after no senior appearances for the Blues, while Rony Lopes cost Monaco £9m in 2015 after five appearances, and Pablo Maffeo cost Stuttgart £8.1m in July after just three.
City make up by far the largest amount of the money made by the big six from the sale of academy players.
Tottenham raised £11.8m from graduates with 10 or fewer appearances for the senior team over the same time period.
For Arsenal the amount was £11.6m, United £9.8m, Chelsea £6.6m and Liverpool £3.3m.