Regeneration project announced

There had been rumours for some time, but today we heard that City are going to lead and pay for a major redevelopment project of the area around Eastlands:

A Joint Development Board (JDB) has been formed between the three parties, which will harness the respective strengths of the constituent members – Manchester City Council’s and New east Manchester’s land ownership, their proven track record in regeneration, and their access to public funding together with Manchester City Football Club’s commercial leverage with brand partners and history of investment in all aspects of the club’s development.

The agreement creates the opportunity for a long-term partnership between Manchester City Council, NEM and MCFC, to develop their mutual ambitions for the area. All of the parties share the desire for any commercial development to deliver long lasting economic and community growth to the east Manchester area.

It's good news in terms of the results it will bring about - the area around the ground could do with a bit of livening up, to say the least. More importantly, though, it underlines the long-term commitment of ADUG to MCFC. There's no avoiding the fact that if Sheikh Mansour decides he's bored of City and wants to do something better with his money we will be in a rather difficult position. And so evidence that he's not thinking along those lines is to be welcomed.

Taylor: Cook under threat

The second interesting insider piece on City in Friday's papers: Daniel Taylor writing that Garry Cook's job as Chief Executive is under threat after recent events:

Manchester City's owners in Abu Dhabi are starting to give serious consideration to the position of the chief executive, Garry Cook, at the end of the season after becoming increasingly perturbed about his leadership style and the frequency with which he has attracted bad publicity...

That particular episode was not under ADUG's watch, but Cook's propensity for saying the wrong thing has started to jar with his employers and also affect the way the supporters consider him.

Interesting stuff. Even more so because it is in such contrast with Ian Herbert's article on similar issues in today's Independent:

The club are also undertaking work to ensure that the chief executive, Garry Cook, hugely valued in the Middle East, is not exposed to any more of the embarrassments which have contributed to his gaffe-prone image. Mubarak and his team are reported to believe Cook was left exposed when a video phone was used to record his declaration, in a bar in New York two weeks back, that City would become "without doubt, the biggest and best football club in the world".

Cook had been assured beforehand that it was safe to deliver a rousing speech to fans at the City-supporting Mad Hatter pub, where he had arrived to present a blue plaque to the bar to mark its affinities. The publicity created by the speech has helped fuel the latest chatter among the enemies Cook has made in the game that he is destined to be ousted this summer, though there is no evidence that this might be the case.

Ian Herbert and Daniel Taylor tend to be on the same page on most City issues so to see them disagreeing like this is fascinating. We'll have to wait a while to see which is proved right but it's certainly an interesting light on recent events.

Financial figures released

Quite an interesting story in the 'papers today - revealing that Sheikh Mansour has invested £395million in MCFC so far:

That huge and rapid expenditure is recorded in a document filed at Companies House on Christmas Eve, showing the cancellation of £305m which Mansour initially put into the club as loans. That includes some debt Mansour inherited when he took over the then stricken club from the former prime minister of Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra, and his expenditure since on players including Robinho, Craig Bellamy, Nigel de Jong, Shay Given, Wayne Bridge, Gareth Barry, Roque Santa Cruz, Joleon Lescott, Carlos Tevez, Emmanuel Adebayor, Kolo Touré and other investment in the infrastructure at Eastlands.

According to the document, all £305m of the loans from Mansour's Abu Dhabi United Group were cancelled in return for new shares in the club. Mansour's group also bought further shares for £89.6m, to finance City's hugely increased wage bill and other expenditure this season.

City last night released figures from their official accounts for the year to 31 May 2009, which includes the first nine months of Mansour's ownership. The club recorded almost a tripling of the previous year's loss, to £92.6m, caused, it said in a statement, "primarily by increased playing staff costs".

This has got a lot of coverage in the media but I'm not sure how big a story it is in itself. I mean, everyone who follows football knows that Sheikh Mansour has ploughed an unprecedented volume of money into MCFC since he took over. And so the announcement of precisely how much money he has put in doesn't really seem to be here or there.

It is good to hear that the Sheikh's investment is in the form of shares rather than loans, though. We don't want nine figure loans to pay off should anything untoward happen.