I agree with you totally. Leicester owner bought Leicester in 2010 for £39m, cleared their debts and now the club is worth £371M, and with a stadium expansion plan. Only because Leicester owner didn't spend as heavy as Chelsea and Man City owner so people don't complain about "buying their way to success". The Srivaddhanaprabha family bought the team back in 2010, won the promotion in 2013-2014, then won the EPL in 2015-2016 season. The club's value increased from £39m to £371M. Leicester, Chelsea and Man City are basically doing the same thing.
Yes it is interesting that City are seen as the ultimate sugar daddy club and Leicester are seen as the 5,000/1 romance story. Clearly the scale of investment is totally different, I would never deny that. But the basic business strategy is almost exactly the same, and our clubs' values have both increased by almost an identical ratio -- City from £250m to £2.5bn, and Leicester from £39m to £371M. We also have in common that we both failed FFP on the way up! I'm not sure what this tells me about the generally opposite reaction to both clubs: 1) perhaps people don't really know Leicester's growth story and how it happened (or other clubs such as Bournemouth for that matter); 2) perhaps it is just the scale of investment in City's case that people have a problem with; 3) perhaps it's that City are an ongoing threat to the elite clubs in a way that Leicester aren't; 4) perhaps it's the additional UAE/human rights issue that people have a problem with. All of those are perfectly valid and maybe it's a mix of all of those, but it is interesting because it does suggest that in general people don't have a problem with an owner equity investment model.
I do also think that there's some fairly major misunderstandings about finance that seem to confuse some posters/fans. It's perfectly normal in business for equity investors to sustain losses as part of a business strategy. The obvious example is Amazon, a loss-making bookshop that IPO'd, made losses year after year due to its heavy investment in warehouses/stock etc. to drive revenue growth. And now look at it. That sounds awfully like City's strategy of heavy investment in player acquisition to drive on-field performance, with a direct link to driving revenue growth. Uber is basically following exactly the same path.
I know that fans, myself included honestly, don't really like seeing football clubs as traditional businesses, but that's exactly what they are these days. I can't think immediately of any PL club where the owner is clearly not there to make money from their investment. So it's strange to me to see people laugh or put "investment" in inverted commas when it comes to City, I think mostly on the basis that City sustained heavy losses immediately following the ADUG takeover. Yes we sustained heavy losses, and yes we were an investment. An excellent investment as it's turned out. Losses and investment are not mutually exclusive, they happily co-exist as part of this type of business strategy.
Final note, I've said all of that, but FFP of course now means that we're in a situation where this type of equity investment model is now no longer permitted. Is it because it's not a valid business strategy? No. So why? This is when City fans start talking about elite club self-interest and preventing competition...
