Huge costs up at City so far.

Manchester City have added almost £160 million in bills since Mark Hughes has been working under the financial backing of new owners. It is a staggering amount when you consider that the only real high profile star that City have drafted in is Robinho.

The wage bill has almost doubled and the news may very well come as a shock to many as it proves just how easily a massive football club can spend cash if there are not strict regulations in place to stem the amount of expenditure.

This figure will rockets City are bound to make a number of summer signings and have already added Gareth Barry to the squad for a £12 million fee. No player at the club in the first team earns less than £44,000 per week, which may seem small in comparison to other clubs, but when bigger signings are likely to arrive, the number of contract upgrades that will be demanded is slightly worrying.

However, City insist that they are a well run business like club that likes to boast value for money on all fronts. Chief Executive, Gary Cook said: “The story is completely without foundation. Robinho has always been a highly valued member of our team and that continues to be the case. Reports suggesting that he will leave the football club, either on loan or on a permanent deal, are absolutely untrue.”

Robinho himself earns ten per cent of the entire City wage bill each year and many pundits criticised him for joining City because they saw it as a purely financially motivated move. They believe that now City have proven to not be as good as the Brazilian would have hoped, that he is trying to jump ship in order to save his own career and maintain his international chances of becoming a Brazilian legend.

The point is that City’s figures are already quite high, especially for a club that is not in the top six. How much they are likely to increase again depends a lot on the manager and the freedom that the chairman and owners will give him to make better signings. However, it will increase to heights that the club would have never thought were possible.

The job for City is trying to make sure that the club can still offer value for money to its players and its fans. The only reason Robinho is on such high wages is because it was probably the only thing that would have got him to switch to City from a move to Chelsea. So long as the club is run efficiently, there is no reason why the finances of the side and everything else to do with the club cannot be managed in a productive way.

They also need to echo the chairman’s comments from earlier in the week and make sure that they are not taken advantage of as a club. If they allow this to happen then it is likely that the number of subclauses in player contracts will see wages and bonuses rocketing to epic proportions, which could be the downfall of the club.