City purchased outright and sold two tranches of ownership for 25% to Chinese and American investment groups with the funds invested in the City group. They also don't take money out and the club had the good fortune of inheriting a free stadium in which they have made substantial additional investment.

As much as fans of the American owned clubs bray about dirty oil money and sports washing their own club's financial models tend to be leveraged and extractive from football and their team's cash flow. I'm pretty sure the Burnley owners only put in 20% equity with debt service severely limiting player and other investment.

1) I'm pretty sure the club was in deep shit when FSG bought. They have improved the situation drastically.
2) At least some of that debt is tied to stadium expansion. It's possible the majority of it is. I think they're in really good shape when it comes to player expenditures.

Abramovich just agreed to wipe a billion of debt off the books for Chelsea. So stuff like that helps.

City's relative debt free models is aided by the oil money as well well as the ownership investment group that spreads losses over multiple clubs and the ability to negotiate both sides of the Ethihad sponsorship of City.

Sheikh Mansour doesn’t take a draw from the club which helps a lot. He is content to reinvest revenues into the team.

I’m not sure if the club is paying a dividend to Silver Lake which owns 10 percent of the club.