Deloitte’s 2009 Biggest Football Fat Cats

Whilst we were busy regretting the holiday pounds and making resolutions to knock them off we knew full well we weren’t going to keep, the financial people of the world were abuzz with their abacuses trying to determine the final outcome of 2009.

For football, it’s all about the bottom-line: revenue. Television, shirts, gate receipts and suspicious midweek friendlies in Albania have all been counted up and spit out by Deloitte.

If you’re looking for surprises – go somewhere else. If you’re looking for a list to re-remind you just how much Champions League, Premiership and Bundesliga TV money means, we’ve got your back.

Without further ado, the big list in millions of euros (€).

1 Real Madrid 401.4

2 Barcelona 365.9

3 Manchester United 327.0

4 Bayern Munich 289.5

5 Arsenal 263.0

6 Chelsea 242.3

7 Liverpool 217.0

8 Juventus 203.2

9 Internazionale 196.5

10 Milan 196.5

11 Hamburg 146.7

12 Roma 146.4

13 Lyon 139.6

14 Marseille 133.2

15 Tottenham Hotspur 132.7

16 Schalke 124.5

17 Werder Bremen 114.7

18 Borussia Dortmund 103.5

19 Manchester City 102.2

20 Newcastle United 101.0

Real Madrid top the list in terms of revenue and in doing so became the first club to top the €400m mark, but the most interesting thing to note is net change in revenue within the top 20 from 2008 to 2009 (again in millions of euros):

1. Barca +57.1
2. Juventus +35.7
3. Real +35.6
4. Inter +23.6
5. HSV +18.8
6. Marseille +6.4
7. Liverpool +6.1
8. ManU +2.2
9. Arsenal +1.4
10. Man City -1.8
11. Bayern -5.8
12. Tottenham -12.3
13. Milan -13
14. Lyon -16.1
15. Schalke -23.9
16. Newcastle -24.6
17. Chelsea -26.6
18. Roma -29

(Werder & Borussia Dortmund are newcomers into the Top 20.)

* – Important to note the red doesn’t indicate Michel Platini’s debt-hunting henchmen are going to be knocking on doors in the morning – it simply means they went from pulling in ridiculous amount of money to slightly less ridiculous amounts of money.

For some clubs, it’s plain to see reasons for the change – everybody loves to jump on a bandwagon, and Barca is/was not an exception; everybody loves to fly off the bandwagon when the club gets relegated, a la Newcastle – while there are others whose fall may leave a few heads scratching – Chelsea, for instance (though there is a theory the Champions League finalist-to-semifinalist drop is greater than you’d imagine). The Juventus slight anomaly is very simple: the 2008 findings would’ve counted the receipts of the 2007-08 European season, in which they didn’t take part while still doing penance for Calciopoli. Thus 2008: no CL money. 2009: Champions League money.

So when it’s said ‘Unnamed FC is gunning for the Champions League money spots‘, it couldn’t be any more accurate.

Scarily enough, there is one team missing from this list, a team which would slot casually into 11th place:

“Broadcast income provided Real with its largest increase in revenue and at €161m is now greater than the total revenue of all but the top 10 Money League clubs.

Florentino sure can bring in the cheddar – now comes that pesky little nonsense about ‘winning trophies’.

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Category: World Football