There is no real secret that money dominates football. It can create quite the divide between genuine title hopefuls and the rest of the chasing pack in competitions. The transfer market now regularly sees major trades around the £100m mark.
But it’s only a select few clubs that really have the finances to throw that kind of money at pushing for silverware. Some clubs work on tighter budgets, meaning that at the end of the day, the business of football is more about survival than anything else.
In January 2023, Deloitte published their annual Football Money league. Based on the numbers from 2022, they compiled a list of the wealthiest clubs in world football and all of them were from Europe. For punters using betting sites recommended by Match Center in Nigeria, the teams on the list are naturally some of the strongest favourites for titles. So where is the money in world football?
Some of the Criteria
Income for clubs comes from many sources such as sponsorship deals, prize money, commercial rights, transfers, and punters walking through the turnstiles week after week and buying merchandise and season tickets.
Premier League Dominates
Three of the top five wealthiest football clubs on the Deloitte list were from the English Premier League. Topping the charts for the second season running was Manchester City with a revenue of £619.1m. That was up from £571.1m from the previous season.
Liverpool came in third, followed closely by Manchester United. That was the first time that the Reds had placed above United on the money list. So there is a lot of power and money in the Premier League, which is regarded as the best league in the world. Further proof of that was taken by looking further down the list.
Of the top 10 wealthiest clubs, six of them were Premier League clubs. London clubs Chelsea, Tottenham, and Arsenal filled 8th through 10th in the final standings, with Arsenal coming in with a revenue of £367.1m.
Taking an even deeper look down the top twenty, a further five English clubs booked spots on the list. So in total, more than half of the 20 richest clubs in the world played in the English top flight.
Top 10 Wealthiest Clubs Reported January 2023
- Man City
- Real Madrid
- Liverpool
- Manchester United
- Paris Saint-Germain
- Bayern Munich
- Barcelona
- Chelsea
- Tottenham
- Arsenal
The Others
There’s little surprise surrounding the other names on the list. The power that comes from wealth generally translates as success on the pitch. La Liga giants Real Madrid and Barcelona both placed well.
Barcelona faced massive financial struggles last year, which meant that they did slip down the charts from the previous list. Their big El Clásico rivals Real Madrid fared a lot better.
For the second season running, they remained Manchester City’s closest financial challengers near the top of the wealthy list, the only other team to generate more than £600m in revenue.
Champions All The Way
The other two spots in the top 10 wealthiest clubs list were filled by Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich, domestic champions of France and Germany respectively. So four of the domestic champions from Europe’s Big 5 leagues were in the top ten.
Again, that’s nothing surprising. Having the ability to buy the best players around, translates into further revenue generation opportunities. Prize monies from titles, places in lucrative competitions like the UEFA Champions League, and even the sale of more merchandise celebrating those successes are huge financial boons
Absent Italians
But with the English Premier League, German Bundesliga, French Ligue 1, and Spain’s La Liga represented, there is a glaring omission from the top ten. Not one Italian team could break the top ten with Juventus coming the closest.
The Serie A club, without a league title since 2020, came home in the eleventh spot in the standings, roughly £30 million behind 10th-placed Arsenal.
The Results
Again, nothing about the list is surprising. Everyone knows who the richest clubs in the world are. It’s those that are continuously linked with buying up the best players in the world like Man City capturing Erling Haaland.
There is a massive divide in wealth alone in the Premier League. Manchester City’s huge number of £619.1m completely dwarfed the £179.8m that was generated by Newcastle United who were 20th in the Deloitte wealthy list.
It’s hard to see the gap between the Premier League’s collective wealth being bridged by any of the other big European leagues. The Premier League’s model that continues to attract huge global interest is something that works so well.
