As I type this all the talk in the media is of Gareth Bale and will he or won’t he move on from White Hart Lane, although I have the awful feeling that they’ll still be harping on about it 24/7 by the time you get round to reading this as well. If he does go to Real Madrid though then the Spanish giants will still have to raid the piggy bank for a possible €100 million fee bearing in mind they only received almost half that amount, at €48.4m, from the 2012/13 Champions League fund.
Looking at the figures, with the full details available at http://www.uefa.com/uefa/management/finance/news/newsid=1975196.html, well the first thing that stands out is that two of the top three earners in the competition, in AC Milan and Juventus at €51.3m and €65.3m, were knocked out in the round of 16 and quarter-finals respectively. The reason there being that as well as match victory bonuses and incremental progression in the tournament prize money, monies are also allocated through the market pool. That being divided according to the proportional value of the national TV market allocated to each individual club, among other factors.
Infact, there has been a lot spoken about regarding the size of football television deals in this country, but the latest Champions League TV deal with ITV and BSkyB saw no rise in its value, but in Italy the deal increased by around 35% and in Spain by around 20%. Add to that just two Italian clubs qualifying for the group phase meant that they were able to take a massive half of the pie each, whereas in England the television monies had to be chopped into a quarter per club between Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United.
Despite that, and with only Arsenal and Manchester United just making it to the round of 16 there was still plenty of money to be had for the English boys, with those two taking home €31.4 and €35.5 million respectively, while City lagged behind on €28.7m after going out at the group stage. As for Chelsea, well they did the best of the lot overall after netting €30.7m from the Champions League, while their winning of the Europa League then netted them another €10.7m to make a nice total European pot of €41.4m.
When you look at the Europa League versus Champions League payments it’s pretty easy to see why the Premier League top four remains a stranglehold, despite Arsenal’s best efforts to drop out of it. Perennially fifth-placed Tottenham for instance picked up just €5.4m, while Newcastle United took home slightly less at €5.3m despite both clubs reaching the quarter-finals of the competition. At least the Magpies seem to have already invested some of their money in an extremely wise fashion though, with the return of Joe Kinnear to St James’ Park.
Of course the huge disparity between European competition payments exists in other countries too, with Italy understandably leading the way. Juventus in just one season earning an enormous €59m more than Inter Milan, who were at €6.6m also €45m behind their city rivals AC. It’s no wonder then that we end up with a top one, two, three or four stalemate in European leagues, Celtic for example already miles ahead on attendance and other income before their €23.6m from the Champions League, compared to St Johnstone losing at their first hurdle in the second qualifying round of the Europa League to Eskisehirspor.
Saints chairman Steve Brown commenting on the two-legged tie against the Turkish side: “Last year, as much as we had a terrific relationship with Eskisehirspor and we keep in close contact, it cost over £110,000 for the plane and we only got £90,000 for the round." Where that leaves football from a long term perspective is anybody’s guess, but you wouldn’t think it would be a healthy state that’s for sure. Infact, for all the chatter at the moment about German football being the way to do things, they are plenty of concerns regarding the financial advantage Bayern Munich continue to strengthen in the Bundesliga, although their prize fund for winning the Champions League was €10.3m less than Juventus at €55m. Sometimes, the winner doesn’t take it all.