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.

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The Political Economy of Football V2

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