Europe’s richest football teams

Manchester United continues to lead the richest teams in European football, even though earnings dropped £13 million last season.

The only change in the top five places is Real Madrid swapping positions with Barcelona.

English Premier League sides Southampton and Everton joined the top table of football, with Italian team Napoli. They took the places of Italian teams AS Roma and AC Milan and Russian side FC Zenit St Petersburg.

Accountancy firm Deloitte produced the ‘money league’ and explained how much taking part in the European Champions League and Europa Cups influence the placings.

Broadcast revenues from TV and broadband media companies also swell the coffers for soccer teams.

To join the financial elite of European football, a team now must generate a season’s income of more than 200 million euros – a 16% increase over the previous season.

Manchester Utd keeps top place

Sitting in the top 20 of the football money league enables teams to dominate their leagues even more as they can afford to pay higher transfer fees and wages for the best players.

“The top ten remains consistent in composition for the fourth consecutive year, but there were some notable shifts in position with four clubs changing their ranking from 2015/16,” says the Deloitte Football Money League 2018 report.

“Real Madrid’s strong commercial growth sees them move back into the top two at the expense of arch-rivals FC Barcelona, who drop to third, whilst Arsenal jump ahead of Paris Saint Germain to claim sixth.

“This year’s battle for first place was the closest in Money League history, with just €1.7m separating Manchester United and Real Madrid. For the first time, the top three Money League clubs aggregate revenue totalled €2 billion, which is more than the total revenue of the eleven clubs ranked 20-30.”

The Deloitte Football Money League 2018

Source: Deloitte
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