Uefa money goes to wealthy clubs

The authoritative Swiss Ramble takes a look at the money clubs receive from Uefa competitions even before they have started playing. There are many factors to consider and the Zurich-based Substack writer has the data to address them. The message that emerges is once again ‘to them that hath shall be given.’ Of course, arguably the funding was tweaked as one way of discouraging the formation of a Super League.

The country that is guaranteed most money from the Champions League this season is England with €326m, followed by the other four members of the “Big Five” leagues, namely Spain €243m, Germany €216m, Italy €180m and France €149m. There is then a big gap to the Netherlands €75m and Portugal €74m, with the rest of the top ten being made up of Belgium €59m, Greece €32m and Norway €31m.

Crystal Palace could earn €22m (£19m) if they manage to win the Conference League, which would be around half of the Europa League. This is scant consolation for their harsh treatment.

Four of the top seven clubs in terms of guaranteed income are from England, namely Manchester City €64m, Liverpool €61m, Chelsea €59m and Arsenal €56m. The other two Champions League representatives, Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United, have earned €50m and €35m respectively.

In Scotland Rangers actually have the highest guaranteed income of €17.1m, despite their current travails, while Celtic are ranked fourth with €14.5m, the difference being down to a higher value pillar.

The Swiss Ramble comments: ‘Most people will already appreciate that there is a huge amount of income available in UEFA competitions, especially the lucrative Champions League, but not many realise that much of this can effectively be banked even before a ball is kicked in the league phase.

For example, no fewer than 13 clubs have guaranteed TV money above €50m, with five of them earning more than €60m. That’s before taking into consideration additional gate receipts and performance-related clauses in sponsorship agreements

The top 17 earners are from the Big Five leagues. In particular, the Premier League continues to dominate, as it has four of the leading seven clubs.’ This in turn explains why the Premier League is less of a level playing field than might appear.

For all the data, subscribe to the Swiss Ramble on Substack.

I have received objections to my summarising the Swiss Ramble’s reports. His basic subscription of £50 is not a lot, but not everyone can afford it in these straitened times. I suspect that in any case his material is being scraped by AI.

With my club’s Substack, I confine myself to brief tasters but then the work constitutes the journo’s livelihood. I doubt whether that is the case with the Zurich-based blogger, but I expect he also has smarter lawyers than I do so he can always ask me to ‘cease and desist’.

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The Political Economy of Football V2

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