By Paul Nicholson
January 19 – Manchester United have emphatically beaten Barcelona and Real Madrid to the top of the Deloitte Football Money League, beating second place Barca by almost €69 million. Eight Premier League clubs were in the top 20 that collectively generated a record €7.4 billion in the 2015/16 period – more than FIFA generates in its four-year cycle.
In last season’s money league Man Utd were third, €40 million behind Real Madrid. In one year they have had a €109 million revenue reversal compared to Real who themselves still grew revenue by €43 million in a season in which they won the Champions League.
Real Madrid have held the top spot in the money league for 11 seasons. Deloittes say that while Man Utd showed strong growth across the three categories of match day, commercial and broadcast revenues, it was the €100 million boost in commercial revenue that drove the club to the top of the table.
Holding on to that position will be difficult according to Dan Jones, partner in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte: “They’ll face strong competition from FC Barcelona and Real Madrid to retain the top spot in next year’s edition, due to the lack of Champions League football, the weakening of the Pound against the Euro and, over the longer term, as other clubs enter the commercial market demanding similar deals, using United as the precedent.”
The ambition of other clubs to tap into these revenue sources was shown earlier this week with the rebranding of iconic Italian club Juventus who radically redesigned their club logo with a new branding campaign attached (‘Black and white and more’) in recognition that to capture a global audience and loyalty there needed to be more marketing support for the football product on the pitch.
In the first year of the Deloittes report Juventus were ranked fourth with a turnover of £53.2 million (1996/97), Man Utd were top with £89.2 million. In the latest table Juventus were still the top Italian team but had dropped to tenth place with a revenue figures of £255 million, less than half that of Man Utd.
The difference in revenue between the top and bottom of the table is huge with Man Utd’s €680 million dwarfing Leicester City’s €172 million in 20th place. The top six clubs – Manchester City have impressively fought their way into fifth place – all have more than €500 million in revenue. After them the drop off is pretty steep, again reinforcing concerns that one of the major results of UEFA’s Financial Fair Play has been a reinforcement of the unassailable position of the big clubs.
It is very unlikely (read impossible) that Man City and Paris St Germain – driven into position by investor cash – would be able to force themselves into a top six spot if they were starting today in the position they were in seven seasons ago. Juventus are going to have to climb back up the table the hard way.
The chart shows that in fact there is something of a status quo within the top clubs with only two new entrants into the Top 20 and none in the top 16 – the rich are getting richer. But within the top tier of football clubs in the current commercial environment, the poor are also getting richer as well, just not as fast or on the same scale.
Looking at positions 20 to 30 there are another four Premier League clubs in the ranking – Newcastle United, Southampton, Everton and Sunderland.
Tim Bridge, senior manager at Deloitte, said: “The 2015/16 Money League has seen overall revenue of the top 20 clubs grow by 12%, compared with 8% in the previous year. We can expect the growth rate to be strong again next year as the Premier League clubs benefit from increased revenue due to their record television contracts. There is a strong chance that almost all Premier League clubs will be in the top 30 clubs next year.”
So if the Premier League clubs are on the rise then whose positions will they take? Deloittes predicts that it will be the Italian clubs and particular AC Milan and International. They may end up being saved and re-invigorated by new Chinese ownership money, but it will take time to rework the commercial proposition.
Football Money League – 2015/16 revenue
Source: Deloitte
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