Premier League teams heading towards $600 million Champions League windfall
GENEVA — Leading Premier League clubs are reaping even greater rewards this season from the prize money associated with the UEFA Champions League.
Six English teams participated in this edition of the Champions League, marking a record for a single nation. Following Wednesday’s final round of group-stage matches, five teams advanced directly to the round of 16 after finishing in the top eight of the 36-team standings.
The sixth team, Newcastle, which finished in 12th place, will be included in the draw for the knockout playoffs on Friday.
The English contingent is projected to earn at least a total of €500 million ($600 million) in prize money from UEFA. The five teams that qualified directly on Wednesday will each receive an additional €2 million ($2.4 million): Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea, and Manchester City.
“Each of them could easily earn close to €100 million ($120 million), and those that reach the semifinals and finals will earn even more,” stated Kieran Maguire, a soccer finance expert and co-host of The Price of Football podcast, in comments to The Associated Press on Thursday.
This would result in England receiving more than one euro (dollar) out of every five from the total UEFA prize pool of nearly €2.5 billion ($3 billion) that the European soccer governing body will distribute among the 36 Champions League clubs this season.
This financial clout contributed to the efforts of Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Juventus to initiate the Super League five years ago in an attempt to maintain competitiveness. A backlash in England ultimately led to the project’s failure.
A reflection of England’s strength in the Champions League is Arsenal’s status as the only team with a flawless eight-win record, while Liverpool and Tottenham secured third and fourth places despite underwhelming performances in the Premier League.
Liverpool triumphed in four of its last five Champions League matches – including victories over Madrid and Inter – while managing only four wins in 13 Premier League games. Tottenham is currently positioned 14th in the Premier League standings.
Even Newcastle, regarded as England’s “worst” team in the Champions League thus far, concluded the league-phase standings ahead of three of Spain’s five teams, three of Italy’s four representatives, and three of Germany’s four entries.
Spain’s share of prize money will be further diminished as Athletic Club and Villarreal failed to qualify for the 24-team knockout phase. Serie A champion Napoli and Eintracht Frankfurt were also eliminated.
Italy is uncertain about its participation in the round of 16, as even its highest-ranked team, Inter Milan – which reached two of the last three Champions League finals – finished just 10th in the standings. Juventus ended in 13th place, while Atalanta was 15th.
“This indicates that there will be an increasing concentration of wealth among a small group of clubs,” remarked Maguire, who teaches at the University of Liverpool.
This dominance is driven by three decades of escalating revenues from the Premier League’s global broadcasting agreements, which are worth billions of dollars each season.
The substantial Premier League prize money distributed annually to each of the 20 clubs enables even mid- and lower-table teams to outbid regular Champions League participants elsewhere in Europe for transfer fees and salaries.
The expansion of the Champions League last season, which added four more teams in the new format, created new opportunities for England to capitalize on. This decision was influenced by pressure from the influential European Football Clubs group on UEFA.
Two of the four additional spots are allocated to the two countries with the best collective performance in the previous season’s UEFA competitions. Title victories last year for Tottenham in the Europa League and Chelsea in the Conference League, along with all four English teams, including Aston Villa, reaching the Champions League knockout phase, easily secured an extra place. Spain received the other.
This bonus system, which Maguire described as “rather bizarre,” appears to have generated momentum to reward the fifth-place team in the Premier League each year for the foreseeable future.
England currently leads in that UEFA-managed ranking table this season, although Poland is making strides for the second bonus entry due to strong performances in the third-tier Conference League.
“We have essentially created a Super League by stealth,” Maguire suggested regarding the financial strength of the Premier League and its top-earning clubs, “which means that other clubs either have to accept their position in the hierarchy of football or become exceptionally strategic to try to bridge the gap.”
