Only two Premier League teams have published the financial results for the 2023/24 reporting period, but the crown for the club with the highest revenue won’t be going to anyone else but Manchester City.

While the reigning Premier League champions are currently enduring a tough time on the pitch, the success of the club in recent seasons has been nothing short of phenomenal, with last season’s Premier League triumph making it an unprecedented fourth in a row.

The 2023/24 season was also on the back of a remarkable campaign at home and abroad, with the club having won the Premier League, Champions League, and FA Cup. That success, particularly with the riches that came with the Champions League through prize money and broadcasting, super-charged City’s finances.

The 2023/24 financials show a financially robust club. The independent commission hearing into the 115 charges brought by the Premier League against the club over allegations of breaching financial rules for a decade-long period, which the club denies, would, of course, alter the longer term outlook and significantly impact revenue streams, but the accounts look at a snapshot in time, and City are innocent until proven otherwise.

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The financials showed a record turnover of £715m, up a rather modest £2m year on year. But any increase in revenue at all was quite some feat given the success of the previous financial year and the fact that City exited the Champions League at the quarter-final stage, thus missing out on broadcast revenues and prize money associated with further progression.

Wages fell by £10m, likely linked to a lack of bonuses paid out compared to the previous year, while commercial rose by £4m to £345m. There was another bumper player trading year, with the club registering £139m in player trading profit, up from £122m the previous year.

What was stressed several times in the financial report the club put out was that the revenues were very much contingent on the club achieving on the pitch. That has been something of a foregone conclusion for a number of years, but this season has already thrown up enormous challenges that mean it is no longer cut and dried that City will be in the top four come the end of the season, or if they will progress in the Champions League.

The hope, of course, is that the tanker can be turned around in good time and this season can still be a successful one, but missing out on Champions League riches would be very impactful for City in, mostly, the 2025/26 financials.

The struggles come at a time when City look like the need to spend big for a rebuild in the summer, and that kind of thing is expensive. Player trading will be key again, but realising the resale value on some assets that could be used as a makeweight to make that task easier will be more challenging on the back of a tough season. The club getting anything like what they paid for Jack Grealish, for example, seems highly unlikely.

It also will arrive at a time when the club is on the hook for record-high transfer commitments to the tune of some £290m. That is money still due to be paid out to clubs either for transfer instalments or through add-ons and clauses that could still be activated during the life of a contract. Now, those kinds of financial liabilities aren’t uncommon, although the City figure is very high, but having the ability to meet the costs may be more challenging if competitive success diminishes revenue, which would result in far less rosy financial results.

There are some things on the horizon to lean on, however. The club will receive around £50m for competing at the FIFA Club World Cup next summer, while live concerts will return to the Etihad Stadium from 2026, with this past financial year seeing the club miss out on the significant revenue that comes with hosting those during the summer, the last being in the summer of 2023 when the likes of The Weeknd played at the stadium. Oasis’ comeback gig, sadly, fell at a time when the Etihad could not play host.

The return of live events would arrive when the Etihad increased its capacity to 62,000 from 2026, up from the 53,400 it presently sits at. That will add tens of millions to matchday revenue annually.

The club has plenty to remain bullish on around future projections, and clubs like Liverpool, who will post a significant loss for 2023/24 when their results are announced early next year due to a season out of the Champions League, have already bounced back strongly financially due to improved performance.

City could turn a corner soon, but of all the so-called ‘big six’ teams, it is the reigning champions whose financial success is most closely associated with the on-pitch success, and that puts a lot of pressure to make that happen each and every year.