MANCHESTER, England (AP) Manchester City is profitable for the first time since being bought by a member of Abu Dhabi's ruling family in 2008.
Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan's team reported a profit of 10.7 million pounds ($16.5 million) during the 2014-15 financial year, covering a season when it failed to win a trophy. The previous year, when winning the Premier League, City lost 22.9 million pounds.
City had previously been fined by UEFA for breaching Financial Fair Play rules as it spent heavily to catch up with rivals with a more sustained record of success.
City reduced its wage bill to 193.5 million pounds and City generated a club-record 351.8 million pounds in 2014-15, closing in on Manchester United, whose turnover was 395 million pounds in the same period.
Now the City hierarchy seems to expect manager Manuel Pellegrini to deliver a trophy this season.
''The fact that we consider last season to be below par for Manchester City is a testament to how far we have come in the last seven years,'' chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak said in the financial report published Wednesday.
''This is a level of ambition that we should not shirk or shy away from. It is right to have high expectations.''
