By Paul Nicholson
May 31 – The latest KPMG Football Benchmark report on the Enterprise Value of clubs is ultimately a homage to Manchester United and the Premier League’s bumper television rights deal.
Man Utd who last year topped the ranking jointly with Real Madrid, in the 2017 ranking became the first club to surpass the €3 billion threshold in Enterprise Value – a 7% increase on last year in a season where they neither competed at any stage for the Premier League and hadn’t qualified for the Champions League.
In contrast second ranked Real Madrid won La Liga and this Saturday play Juventus in the Champions League final. Real Madrid saw growth of 2% over last year. The difference between Man Utd and Real Madrid in the KPMG valuation is €100 million.
KPMG calculated the Enterprise Value of the 32 most prominent European football clubs
as at 1 January 2017. Premier League clubs filled six of the top 10 positions with Manchester City moving ahead of Arsenal into fifth spot. They are followed by Chelsea and Liverpool.
Spurs broke into the top 10 for the first time, replacing Paris St Germain. The report authors say that with a new stadium coming the club now consistently qualifying for the Champions League, they can expect to at least maintain position.
The Enterprise Value measures the value of a club relative to the revenues that it generates. Revenue figures are then multiplied by a multiplier derived from observations of similar clubs which are publicly listed and acquisitions of similar companies.
Overall the KPMG Football Benchmark research found that at €29.9 million, the aggregate value of the top 32 clubs had grown by 14% compared to last season. The financial balance is tipped very favourably towards the top 10 clubs which make up more than two-thirds of the overall Enterprise Value.
The top four are the only clubs above the €2 billion landmark. Barcelona were again in third place but showed no significant increase in Enterprise Value, while fourth placed Bayern Munich closed the gap with a 14% increase.
Juventus are the only Italian club in the top 10, driven by their on-pitch performances both domestically and internationally (Serie A winners and Champions League finalists). They showed a 24% growth in Enterprise Value.
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