Spurs are the richest club in London

The latest edition of the Deloitte Money League is available: https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/sports-business-group/articles/deloitte-football-money-league.html

Tottenham Hotspur have overtaken Chelsea to become the richest club in London thanks to the earning power of their new stadium, according to Deloitte’s latest Football Money League.

The rankings, which cover revenues earned by clubs during the 2022-23 season, also show that Manchester City have been knocked off top spot by Real Madrid, despite Pep Guardiola’s side’s Treble-winning season.

Spurs have leapfrogged Chelsea to become the eighth richest club in the world, with annual revenues of £549.2 million — the Stamford Bridge club’s revenues have been reported as £512.5 million. Arsenal are tenth in the Money League on £463.1 million. Both Arsenal and Chelsea’s income was hit by not being in the Champions League, so Tottenham’s north London rivals should return significantly improved revenues for this season after reaching the knockout stage.

Tottenham earn more than £105 million a season in match-day income — only Manchester United make more among English clubs — while Chelsea’s is about £70 million. Spurs have also benefited from hosting NFL and rugby union matches at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which opened in April 2019, as well as music concerts by artists including Beyoncé, Pink, Lady Gaga and Guns N’ Roses.

The clubs’ revenue figures do not include player sales but they are reflected in profits or losses, so the £100 million sale of Harry Kane in August 2023 did not affect Spurs’s revenues but will have improved their profit.

Real returned to the top of Deloitte’s Money League for the first time in five years thanks to a sharp rise in sponsorship and match-day income contributing to €831 million (£723 million) in revenues for the 2022-23 season. Clubs in Spain and Italy benefited from a full return of fans last season after the pandemic.

Liverpool have dropped out of the top five after a fall in income following their successful 2021-22 season, when they reached the Champions League final but lost 1-0 to Real.

Barcelona have risen back to fourth spot after raising huge sums from exploiting financial “levers”, including the sale of 49 per cent of the media content arm, Barça Vision — which according to their latest accounts raised an “extraordinary profit” of €194 million — and selling 25 per cent of their future TV revenue for the next 25 years to the US private equity firm Sixth Street. The challenge for Barcelona is that they are unlikely to be able to exploit such levers in the future.

PSG have risen from fifth to third, partly due to a €200 million income boost from the French league’s deal with investment fund CVC Capital Partners, who paid €1.5 billion for a 13 per cent share of the league’s commercial subsidiary.

Last season’s relegation of Leeds United and Leicester City means the Premier League now has eight rather than ten teams in the top 20 of the Money League. Apart from the “big six” clubs, Newcastle United and West Ham United are 17th and 18th respectively.

Threat of financial calamity removed from Baggies

West Bromwich Albion had effectively been in decline ever since the club was sold to a Chinese consortium in August 2016, paying a figure north of £200m to buy former owner Jeremy Peace’s stake. Controlling shareholder Guochuan Lai’s ownership was fairly disastrous for the club, but his unloved tenure finally came to an end after Bilkul Football WBA, a company ultimately owned by Florida-based entrepreneur Shilen Patel and his father Dr Kiran Patel, acquired an 87.8% shareholding in West Bromwich Albion Group Limited, the parent company of West Bromwich Albion Football Club. This change in ownership was urgently required, due to the numerous financial problems facing West Brom, including growing high-interest debt and serious cash flow concerns, following years of no investment from the former owner. Indeed, West Brom’s auditors had already rung the alarm bell in the 2021/22 accounts when they cast doubt on the club’s ability to continue as a going concern without making player s

Gold standard ground boosts Tottenham's income

The gold standard in European football grounds is the Tottenham Hotspur stadium in north London, a £1bn construction project completed in 2019. Its impact on the club’s finances has become increasingly clear as the effects of the pandemic have faded. Previously, the average fan would spend less than £2 inside the ground on a typical match day, but now that figure is about £16, thanks to new facilities including the longest bar in Europe and an on-site microbrewery. Capacity has gone up from 36,000 at the club’s previous home of White Hart Lane to 62,000. The new stadium — built on land adjacent to White Hart Lane — has opened the door to a broad range of other events that have helped to push commercial income up from €117mn in 2018 to €215mn in 2022. Last year, Tottenham hosted US singer Beyoncé for five nights on her global Renaissance tour, two NFL matches, as well as rugby games and heavyweight boxing bouts. Money brought in from football has gone up too. Match day income is

Spurs to sell minority stake

Tottenham Hotspur is in talks to sell a minority stake in a deal that could value it at up to £3.75 billion and pave the way for Joe Lewis and his family to sever ties with the Premier League football club. Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy is seeking an investment that values the club at between £3.5 billion and £3.75 billion, including debt. While the terms of any deal have not been finalised, City sources expect Spurs to sell about 10 per cent. The club is being advised by bankers from Rothschild on the sale. Tottenham wants to raise fresh capital for new player signings and to help fund the development of an academy for its women’s team, as well as a 30-storey hotel next to its north London stadium. The financier Amanda Staveley, who brokered the deal for Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to take over Newcastle United, is understood to be among the parties to have expressed an interest in Tottenham. Staveley’s fund, PCP Capital Partners, has raised about £500 million to depl

The Political Economy of Football V2

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