It's been quite a year, Chairman, for the women's team under Gareth Taylor. They ended a 10-year wait for a second Super League title. How exciting was that?
Nothing obviously gives you momentum like winning. And winning this league this year was perfectly timed. Really perfectly timed. I think this is a great team that faced adversity from losing the league in the way that we lost it the previous season and come back strong in a way where we play a particular brand of football, attacking football, goals, exciting football, talented players like Shaw and others, and top manager. Fans are embracing this team and we win it with style.
And it seemed fitting that they were all in the new women's training center here at the CFA. You toured the facility. It's been built specifically for them. How pleased are you with it?
That facility, I think, sets the new standard of facilities for the women's game. I think it's the best in the country, and it's just a testament to our commitment to the game. And to have the team celebrate that championship, sitting together watching it on TV was wonderful. And to have that spirit, to have that unity, to have that camaraderie between all our teams in one campus, it's what makes this club unique, that edge we have in having everybody together in one campus and to have the infrastructure built to support that and to be tailor-made for our needs, for our requirements at a high quality and high standard. That facility is a representation of that, but it's also part of an ethos that covers the entire campus, which I believe is our edge.
Bunny Shaw, she won the third consecutive WSL Golden Boot, was named WSL Player of the Year, and reached 100 goals during the season. She's some kind of player.
She is an exceptional player. We have between Shaw and Haaland, on the men's and women's team, the best goal scorers in the world. And there's no secret why we win leagues.
And if we can just move on to the academy, which is just across the way from the women's building. We talked a little bit about Nico O'Reilly breaking through, but eight other players got their chance to shine in the first team this year from the academy. I mean, that's a big number. And Max Alleyne was probably the standout name from a publicity point of view. He got recalled from a loan at Watford and thrust into Premier League and Champions League games. So, how important does the academy remain and how pleased are you with the number of people that get blooded every year?
It's very, very important and I've said that, Chris, over the years in our interviews. It is foundational for the footballing future of this club and for the economic future of this club. This academy is able to sustain the success when we are able to produce the talent we are producing that are going into now the first team like Nico O'Reilly or moving out and bringing in very important revenue for the club. It is crucial. I think this year is an important year where you saw again more talent. I mean, we've done that consistently.
And we saw the FA Youth Cup won in dramatic fashion against our cross-town rivals. How confident are you that that production line is going to continue?
Very confident. Very confident because you just have to look at our track record over these last years and then you have to look at the pipeline today. And when you speak to our leaders within the academy today, they will look at you with a high level of confidence because we see it, we know it. We have some exceptional players in the academy.
If we can move on to the commercial and corporate side of things. So, you've mentioned the new stand opened just in time for the big farewell. How pleased are you with the way it looked? How pleased are you with the way the project progressed?
Well, first of all, it is a very important investment by the club, very important investment by His Mansour in the community here in Manchester. And it's a continuous investment strategy that has never stopped. From the first day we started in 2008 to where we are today. Every year we keep finding the right opportunities to invest in the city, to invest in this community and to keep generating the right revenue for the growth of the group. And we've done that, I think, consistently. We've never stopped. This is a big investment. It's a big step for us following the investment in the Co-op Arena which was a huge success. The Co-op Arena, I think, has added tremendous value to the club but more importantly has added tremendous value to the community and the city here in Manchester. And now you look at this investment with the development of the north stand, with the new boxes over there, with the hotel that we are developing and then the whole food and beverage space that we are developing around it is going to be transformational, I think, for the club. I don't think people yet understand or appreciate the difference this is going to bring.
I was going to say the Medlock Square development. It's fan areas, a museum, hotel, restaurants. It's a total entertainment development. How transformative is it then?
I think in this country there is nothing like it. I will actually take it a bit further. In Europe, there's nothing like it in terms of a complete development. This one, I think, is a hybrid because it does what I've just said but it also, I think, adds a lot of value to the city adding these entertainment venues to the city and allowing our campus, that entire campus, to be used essentially 365 days a year where it's not just on game day. There is going to be the museum, there's going to be the square with the food and beverage and the new Puma store over there. The level of activation that's going to be continuous, the commercial value we're going to be able to generate in that space, the hotel, the conference facility we have over there, the connectivity to the Co-op Arena.
And there's been so much infrastructure over the last 18 years, so much money spent. It's a lot of cost.
You use the word cost when you refer to infrastructure. I use the word investment. Investment generates revenue, generates return. Cost is just a negative on your balance sheet. Everything we do here is we invest, we invest. And maybe the P&L for that particular year, like in this year, it can be a negative but that's just a time element. Ultimately it's about revenue generation, ultimately it's about profit generation and ultimately it stays in the club because that's what we've done in 18 years. We're not taking a pound of profit outside of the club. What we've done for 18 years is invest and invest and invest and grow this club and grow this group and grow the assets of this group to continue to generate value, generate revenue, and generate sustainable profit for this operation and add value to the community. That's been our mission. That's what I think we continue to accomplish and going forward even in this environment. This is not an easy environment. I know it's a difficult time for many people in this economic cycle and we try our best by investing. We try to generate revenue but more importantly we create jobs. We create economic activity, bring in investment, bring in capital into the city and make that in a sustainable way. I think that's been the model and it's the model that's been very successful, very effective as far as I'm concerned.
Can you explain for people who are not business people what Sheikh Mansour's intentions are with the business and how it operates?
So when you invest in businesses there's many different ways. When you look at the word, I mean obviously this is what I do for a living. You can look at investing for today, meaning looking at profit today. I want a dividend today. I want to profit today. Or you can look at building value, the value of the enterprise you're investing in and say, okay, I don't want to take profit out, but I want the value of that enterprise to grow. It's different models and all different investing ways. And there's many others. Sheikh Mansour when he looks at this club he sees it as a long-term investment, not just Mansour of course and the shareholders who have invested in this club over the years buy into the vision that we're going to invest in something that's going to grow in value over time. Of course, His Highness has no intention of selling this business, but over time new shareholders come in at different value points that show how that value is really growing. So this club when he first invested in it, the value was $120 million back in 2008. Then over the years, we've had multiple stop points where the value went from $120 million to a billion dollars. The value of the group became a billion. Then it became $2 billion. Then it became $3 billion. Then we had investors come in and actually invest in the club at $3 billion. And we continue to grow. We continue to grow the value of this business while always keeping the profits and the revenue in the business because that helps keep growing this value that we're creating. Then we went up to $5 billion. And then more money came in. Investors buying into this strategy, buying into this value creation and putting money into it. And again, took a very important choice, which is the money stays in because we're going to keep building this. And this went up from 5 billion to six to seven to north of $8 billion. If you're going to sell all this today in the market, you wouldn't sell it for less than $10 billion minimum.
That's no intention to sell.
There's no intention. There's no intention to sell. There's only intention to keep growing this because the view here is this will only grow and this is a beautiful business to own. It's football and it's entertainment and in the world we're in today while the world changes and people have different, their attention goes to different things, sports stays and football within sports is the pinnacle. And Manchester City and this group within the football world is a pinnacle and these sort of jewels you don't sell.
And through all that investment you've managed to keep season ticket prices at the same level for three consecutive seasons now. Given that fans are the lifeblood of this club and the sport, how important has that been to you?
