How revenue distribution in Europe could have an extra impact next season

 

 

• How Arsenal have topped the tree when it comes to revenue from Europe
• Arsenal six new transfer targets and seven transfer updates

By Tony Attwood

As I am sure you’ll know, Uefa competitions make a lot of a money… for Uefa.  In fact without these competitions there would be no Uefa, since this is where its money comes from.   And to be fair Uefa gives some of it back to the clubs that participate.  Which is why Arsenal (among everyone else) was so keen to return from their wilderness year of 2021/22 when we had no Euro football, even though it was just into the Europa League in 2022/23.

But financially that was not really good enough for Arsenal because there is a huge gap in funding for clubs between that competition and the Champions League – which of course we have been in for the past two years.

Uefa has a fund called “distribution money” to hand out and it is split between the competitions with about three-quarters of the money going to the Champions League, just under a fifth going to the Europa League and under a tenth going to the Conference League.

Which is why, in part, in the season just gone Chelsea encountered all sorts of problems trying to persuade Uefa that they are balancing the books properly – they only had a tiny income from being in the Conference and their stadium is only two thirds of the size of that of Arsenal’s stadium.  Thus they sold their women’s team to a company they already own.

So next season, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea, Tottenham Hots and Newcastle United will all be earning the big bucks from the Champions League, with Tottenham being given a place because they won the Europa League last season.   Aston Villa and Crystal Palace are in the Europa League while Nottingham Forest will compete in the Conference League.   There are however ongoing arguments about joint ownerships, as there always are, but those are the selected few at the moment.

Each of the 36 clubs that qualified for the league phase received a participation fee, which is money given, even if they lose every single game.

In the Champions League this is worth a hefty €18.6m to each participant, but is much smaller in the other two competitions: €4.3m in the Europa League and €3.2m in the Conference League.

What the income from the Champions League means is that the club has more to spend on transfers, and this acts as a block against other teams improving themselves and making their way into the Champions League.   The financial gap is not just already there between the top clubs and the rest, it is getting bigger.

Which in turn is why clubs are bought by very rich people who then throw fortunes into the club, to get them into the Champions League, and then more fortunes to keep them there.   Indeed when we realise that without even considering the “gate money,” the most that can be earned by the winners of the Europa League (and I can’t quite remember who that was this season) is still only around a third of the money that can be earned by a semi-finalist in the Champions League (Arsenal).

But there is another oddity that emerged in the Champions League this past season which has nothing much to do with money.  Arsenal sauntered past PSG in the group stage, as PSG only won half their games and had a goal difference of +5 in the part of the competition.   Arsenal won six out of eight, and had a goal difference of +13, the second best in the whole league.  From that round alone Arsenal earned €13.3m.

So Champions League money will be welcome again next season, and indeed Tottenham will be grateful of it too, as they are reported to be “one of the most indebted clubs in world football, carrying £851.5m in loans at the end of June last year (according to their accounts).   Add in the money owned on leases and Tottenham’s debt one year ago was £872,100,000.  (That figure comes from the New York Times).

So Tottenham will be very grateful of their leap up into the big boys league in Europe, as it will help pay off some of their enormous debts.  But at the same time, they must be aware that winning the Europa League was nothing like competing in the eight-match league format of the Champions League and if they fail to get through that, the Europa is where they will be once again.

And now they have a new manager who will want to bring in his own type of players which will cost more money.  So I think Tottenham are going to be desperate to get into the later stages of the Champs League next season, and to do that they will be tempted to spend and spend on transfers, and that could make their finances worse.  It’s a bit of a conundrum really.