Nine days ago the XXXVI Ordinary UEFA Congress took place at the Istanbul Congress Centre, XXXVI if I remember rightly from my education of reading Asterix the Gaul books being 36. The main items on the agenda meanwhile being reports of the UEFA President and the Executive Committee and a report of the UEFA Administration 2010/11. Alongside reports on the UEFA committees’ activities, as well as financial matters including; the annual UEFA consolidated statement of accounts for 2010/11 and approval of the budget for the 2012/13 financial year, which you would hope includes an effort to cut down on the costs of the governing expenses of UEFA, which have risen by 40% to 62.3 million euros over the last four years.
So, in these times of austerity for some of us across the football world it’s worth having a quick peek at some of the facts and figures from the financial reports. One point on accounting worth noting being that 2010/11 was the last financial year in which the Swiss franc was used by UEFA as their day to day accounting currency, as with effect from 2011/12 the euro will be used as both the accounting and reporting currency. A consequence of that being that UEFA’s equity has now been converted into euros, with that equity subsequently standing close to the 500 million euro mark.
Onto the figures then, all in euros now of course, and starting with revenue, with the 2010/11 figure of 1.384 billion being up from 1.308 billion in the previous year. You only have to delve deeper into that though to see how reliant that large figure is on broadcasting which accounts for 78% of it, while commercial rights make up nearly all of the rest of the figure. By competition you can see that it’s all about the Champions League too as that is responsible for a massive 79% of income, with the Europa League weighing in at just 14.5%, while other competitions and income make up only 6.5%.
Of course if there is money in then there is money out and somewhat understandably it is the Champions League where the big earners live as far as prize fund money alone is concerned. Manchester United taking home a remarkable 55.5 million for finishing as runners-up, while Barcelona netted 53.2m for winning the tournament, United gaining more as their share of the television pool was larger with the English market being stronger. Elsewhere for the English clubs meanwhile Arsenal got 31.3m just for reaching the first knockout stage, while Chelsea and Spurs, who made it to the quarter-finals, received 46.4m and 32.4m respectively, with the Blues gaining more from the broadcasting market pool than the Lilywhites.
Where does that leave the rest of us in the real world though? I’m never that bothered about the English clubs getting knocked out of Europe early, and a lot of the reason for that is the figures above, as every year with the same perm from six or seven clubs getting into the Champions League the massive sums of money they earn make the Premier League less and less competitive for other clubs. The bottom line being that between the four of them last season Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Spurs took home 163.3m just from the prize fund, so what chance have the rest of us got in trying to keep up?
As for the Europa League, well it seems rather daft to start talking about poor relations by kicking it off with Manchester City, but there you go, the Sky Blues earning ‘only’ 6.4m for reaching the second knockout stage, while Liverpool, who went out in the same round, also picked up 6.4m. Portuguese clubs Porto and Braga, winners and runners-up respectively, netted 8m and 4.6m, although Braga did also manage, as Champions League dropouts, to get 12.3m from that competition. That rather telling you everything as they got just over one and half times more money for failing in the Champions League than Porto did for winning the Europa League.
As for other Champions League dropouts from 2010/11 that went into the Europa League, well getting the money in doesn’t always guarantee you success does it. Rangers netting a hefty 19.3m from the senior competition while also picking up a further 736,000 from the junior competition, 20 million euros being one hell of a good amount of cash for playing ten games in Europe and only winning one of them. Although having said that, I wouldn’t want to be the administrators looking for that many coins down the back of the sofa at the moment.
To read the 2010/11 UEFA financial report in full, with a full breakdown of all Europa League and Champions League payments, go to: