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'Big boys' earn most from Uefa competitions

The authoritative Swiss Ramble reviews earnings from the various Uefa competitions.

As you would expect, the two Champions League finalists earned the most: PSG received a hefty €145m, which is a new record for UEFA club competitions, while Inter’s pain from their paddling would have been slightly eased by €134m.

Five other clubs trousered more than €100m, namely Barcelona €118m, Arsenal €118m, Bayern Munich €106m, Real Madrid €105m and Borussia Dortmund €101m, while Liverpool were just shy of three figures with €98m.

Similarly, the two Europa League finalists earned the most in that competition, as Tottenham received €41m, as Big Ange continued his habit of winning a trophy in his second season at a club, while Manchester United got €36m as runners-up.  Income was even lower in the Conference League. Chelsea might have completed a clean sweep of European trophies, but their feat was only worth €22m this season, while Real Betis got €17m for reaching the final.

Tottenham’s victory in the Europa League was worth less than 30% of PSG’s Champions League triumph. In fact, no fewer than 28 clubs in the Champions League earned more than Spurs (before the money from the Super Cup).    Champions League income is more than four times as much as the Europa League and nearly nine times as much as the Conference League.

The value pillar still rewards the leading clubs, while dampening income for the newer arrivals. As an example, Aston Villa earned €84m, which was €14m less than Liverpool’s €98m, even though they went one stage further in the Champions League.

The value pillar

The Swiss Ramble estimates that PSG earned the most from the value pillar in the Champions League with €44.8m, followed by Manchester City €44.5m, Bayern Munich €43.9m, Real Madrid €42.3m and Liverpool €41.3m.

It is fair to say that the UEFA coefficient had been brought in to placate the larger clubs, who had frequently threatened to abandon UEFA’s competitions for some form of super league, as it rewarded clubs for their historical performance, which obviously benefited the “big boys”.

There have been some comments that this has been redressed by the introduction of the new value pillar, but, as we have seen, this algorithm is still likely to favour the elite, as it is allocated based on the size of the TV deal, as well as the UEFA 5-year and 10-year coefficients.

Even though they lost in the Champions League final, Inter still earned the highest prize money of €82m, just ahead of PSG’s €81m.  As would be expected, earnings very largely reflect progress in the competition, so the next highest payments went to semi-finalists Barcelona and Arsenal with €64m apiece. They were followed by the quarter-finalists, namely Aston Villa €45m, Borussia Dortmund €44m, Real Madrid €44m and Bayern Munich €43m.

England

The country that earned most from UEFA competitions this season was England with €476m, followed by the other four members of the “Big Five” leagues, namely Germany €441m, Italy €416m, Spain €403m and France €367m.  There is then a big gap to Netherlands €171m and Portugal €161m, with the rest of the top ten being made up of Belgium €102m, Austria €87m and Scotland €72m.

England had four clubs in the top 13 in Europe in terms of TV money, which was more than any other country.

Having reached the semi-finals before elimination by PSG, Arsenal had the highest earnings of the English clubs with €118m (£99m). Liverpool were next highest with €98m (£83m) even though they only reached the last 16, while quarter-finalists Aston Villa earned “just” €84m (£71m).

This apparent anomaly was for two main reasons:

  • Liverpool finished top of the league phase.
  • Villa had a much lower value pillar, driven by many years out of Europe.

Manchester City’s €79m was their lowest Europe TV money since 2017/18, as they were beaten by Real Madrid in the knockout round, having performed worse than expected in the league stage.

Spain

The highest earnings in Spain were generated by Barcelona with €118m after the Catalans reached the semi-finals, boosted by finishing second in the league phase. They also received a large slice from the value pillar, but Spanish clubs are hit by this new methodology, as their TV deal is only fourth highest in Europe (at least based on the latest available distributions).

The other elite club, Real Madrid, earned €105m, after they reached the quarter-finals, which would be pretty good by most people’s standards, but not for a club that won the Champions League in two of the previous three seasons. In addition, their 11th place in the league phase was worse than most would have anticipated, but they did benefit from the fourth highest value pillar.

Scotland

One of the clubs that has clearly benefited from the new Champions League format is Celtic, who had three wins and three draws from their eight league games, thus securing qualification to the knockout round, whereas they only had one win in the previous two seasons combined.

This earned them €46m, split between participation fee €18.6m, prize money €14.1m and value pillar €13.4m. The latter element is estimated: the UEFA coefficients included in the calculation are known, while the TV deal for the club market value is based on previous TV pool payments.

Rangers reached the quarter-finals of the Europa League, where they were beaten by Athletic Bilbao, but their €19.8m earnings were less than half of their Glasgow rivals, though it’s possible that my model has under-stated the value pillar (as previous TV pool payments were quite low).  Either way, Rangers had the 9th highest income in the Europa League, which highlights the steep difference in earnings between the various UEFA tournaments.   Hearts earned €5.8m from the Conference League, after they finished 25th in the league phase.

The steep increase in income after the implementation of the new, expanded format is obviously good news for those clubs that qualify for UEFA competitions, but it does raise serious questions about competitive balance, especially given the downward pressure on domestic broadcasting deals.

 

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