Digger's repeated requests over the past month for Manchester City to explain how they will meet Uefa's new financial fair-play rules have gone ignored. A quick look at their transfer spending might indicate why.

Uefa rules state that in order to play in European competition clubs must not have aggregate losses of more than €45m over the three seasons from 2011‑12. Bear in mind that City recorded a turnover of £87m in the 12 months to May last year and that this summer they have spent £126m on new players. Under normal accounting procedures, the cost of those players will be spread out, or "amortised", over the terms of their contracts.

As Arsène Wenger has said, City will not sell many players "because nobody can pay the salaries". If he is right the policy of loaning out players while maintaining their registrations, as with Craig Bellamy's move to Cardiff, will endure.

So even if City sign no more players, most of the 38 current players will remain on the club's books, costing City upwards of £75m in amortisation fees alone in the 2011-12 season. Admittedly, that number is imprecise, having been calculated from figures and contract lengths widely reported at the time of signings but if it is close then City's transfer activity is a time bomb that, even if it buys domestic success, could lead to them being banned from the Champions League.

Fifa dines out on passion

England 2018's bid makes great play of the Premier League's wonders and the vibrancy and passion of its stadiums are at the heart of England's pitch to Fifa. So it seems a little puzzling that when two of the putative title challengers, Manchester City and Liverpool, should be playing at Eastlands, a proposed 2018 venue, on the night Fifa's assessors arrived in England, they were instead attending a dinner in London. The Fifa delegates' schedule was submitted for approval weeks ago, before ESPN and Sky did their fixture picks for last weekend's football, meaning it was impossible to revisit the matter in time for Harold Mayne-Nicholls and Danny Jordaan to get a flavour of the hospitality that could be provided by English venues in 2018.

Rail sends bid off track

The privatised national rail network remains a headache for 2018. At the 2006 World Cup in Germany and at Euro 2008 in Switzerland and Austria, all rail travel between venues was free for match-ticket holders, something the football authorities confirmed had become a very important element in their decision to award tournament-host status. The UK's piecemeal network, with its several different freight and rail operators, has rendered that collective approach impossible. Instead, according to the bid book, fans "will be able to travel on local transport for free on match day in every city". So there is no gratis intercity rail travel, but at least there will not be the hours of internal flights that the geography of Russia's bid demands of fans.

Hicks in hunt for finance

Interesting that Liverpool's co-owner Tom Hicks is on the look out for some fresh financing – $230m according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing in the US. Digger wonders what Hicks Acquisition Co II could need that sort of money for. Hicks Acquisition Co I was set up in 2007 and was at the time the biggest ever market launch of a "special purpose acquisition company" — ie one set up specifically to complete a purchase. A press releaseat the time said: "Hicks Acquisition was formed for the purpose of acquiring, or acquiring control of, through a merger, capital stock exchange, asset acquisition, stock purchase, reorganization or similar business combination, one or more businesses or assets." Might it be that, with administration potentially looming for Liverpool, Hicks is looking for co-investors to buy the club anew?