The latest Deloitte Football Money League has been published, placing Real Madrid at the top as the highest-earning football club in the world on 2012-13.
Despite it being a trophy-less season for Los Blancos, it is the ninth year in a row they have been named as the world’s highest earning club by Deloitte. The nine-time European Cup winners made a total of €518.9 million over the course of the season, beating rivals Barcelona by €36.3m.
Premier League champions Manchester United, who had been the highest earners between 1996-97 and 2003-04, fell out of the top three for the first time since the report was introduced, replaced by German outfit Bayern Munich. The Bundesliga giants had an outstanding campaign on the field last season, winning the domestic league and cup as well as the Champions League at Wembley in May.
In terms of year-on-year gains, French side PSG were the stand-out performers, leaping to 5th from 10th in the space of 12 months thanks to an 81% increase in revenue. The signing of David Beckham for the second half of the season may have been one of the key factors in such an improvement.
Austin Houlihan, a senior consultant in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, said that while the two La Liga giants continued to dominate the money league as well, that could soon come to an end, with United having secured new commercial deals for example.
Speaking to Goal.com, Houlihan said: “Real Madrid still enjoy a healthy gap over Barcelona and have done over the past few years. The interesting thing, along with Barcelona being expected to accrue over €500m in revenue next year, is around Manchester United. If they continue to qualify for Europe, and with the Chevrolet sponsorship deal in 2014-15, then they have a real opportunity to challenge the top two.”
Deloitte’s report takes into account revenues from day-to-day football operations, including matchday ticket and corporate hospitality sales, broadcast rights revenues, sponsorship, merchandising, and other commercial operations. The figures do not include transfer dealings.
On the prospects for the Spanish clubs making more money in the coming months, Houlihan stated: “They are continuing to discuss a collective distribution model and the year they are working towards is 2015-16. What has happened in Serie A since 2010-11 is that they experienced an overall uplift in the overall value of collective deals compared to individual deals, so there are promising signs for Spain.”
| CLUB
1. Real Madrid |
12-13 REVENUE €518.9m |
