Deloitte Football Money League

Real Madrid have once more been named as the club with the biggest revenue income in world football, announced in Deloitte´s annual money league.

Today, Thursday 10 2011, Deloitte, the international finance consultancy firm, published its annual football club money league for the 2010/11 season. Deloitte´s guide is worked out based on three sets of criteria: Matchday earnings, television revenue and commerical money. It does not take debt and interest payments into account but solely the earnings of each football club.

For six years running Spanish giants Real Madrid have been named as the biggest earning football club in the world. Their collective earnings totalled €438.6 million, according to Deloitte, a considerable rise on the amount they earned in the 2009 /2010 season; €401.4 million, which last year was more than other club made, a statistic that demonstrates that year on year, the astronomical sums of money in football are rising. Indeed, the top twenty earning clubs in Deloitte´s 2011 guide collectively earned more than €4 billion for the first time.

FC Barcelona came second again, behind Madrid. The Catalan club recorded revenues totalling €398.1 million, a rise on last year´s total of €365.9 million. Interestingly Barcelona have just signed a €25 million shirt sponsorship deal with the Qatar foundation, the first of its kind in the club´s history. This deal will bolster the club´s earnings significantly, which in future could see Barcelona replace Real Madrid as the world´s biggest earning club.

Indeed the top six earning clubs in the Deloitte money league in 2011 are the same as of last year. In third place are Manchester United, with earnings totalling €349.8 million. The English club came top for the first eight years running in Deloitte´s league, but in recent years they have been overtaken by Spain´s top two clubs. This is largely due to the fact that La Liga´s giants individually negotiate their television deals, making the two clubs colossal amounts of money in relation to what the rest of Spain´s premier clubs take in from television revenues.

In fourth place are Bayern Munich, Germany´s biggest club, making €323 million euros. In fifth are Arsenal, with the London club making €274.1 and in sixth, Chelsea, making €255.9 million.

UEFA´s new financial fairplay initiative will soon come into effect, whereby clubs will only be able to spend money that they earn, a rule that aims to reduce the effect of clubs bankrolling player transfer sprees through means of acquiring debt or from a wealthy club owner injecting money from a personal fortune into the club. It will mean that clubs such as Chelsea, Manchester City and Real Madrid will have to reign in their spending in line with their earnings or risk sanctions from UEFA, such as being banned from European competition. Such an eventuality would be disastrous for the top clubs, as the Deloitte list shows how reliant the clubs are on not only the sizeable Champions League money pot, but the additional opportunites that the Champions League bring, such as playing on a stage where a club can reach out to a wider, global audience, additional commercial revenues and even the chance to play in the Club World Championship.