Global Top 20 clubs's revenue now over €3.3 billion

The Deloitte Football Money League shows the total revenue of the world’s Top 20 clubs is now over €3.3 billion. Spanish Liga A club, Real Madrid remained ahead of the competition with total revenue of € 292m while rivals Barcelona were this year’s biggest movers, up four places to second place. “The two clubs have had contrasting strategies, with Real focussing on driving commercial revenue from recruiting its Galactico players and Barcelona having a more balanced revenue profile. With both the Spanish giants predicting revenues of over €300m in 2006/07 we may well see the same two clubs at the top of the Money League in 2006/07,” Dan Jones, Partner in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, commented. English Premier League club Manchester United, which headed the first eight editions of the Deloitte Football Money League and remains the most profitable club football operation in the world, is the highest of eight English clubs in the top 20 .

The global Top 20 is entirely populated by European clubs with English clubs occupy eight of the positions, Italian clubs four positions, three from Germany, two from Spain, and one club from each of Scotland, France and Portugal.

Developments in the broadcast market have underpinned many of the changes in the Money League, and these give some pointers to the composition of future surveys. “Revenue from the new French broadcasting deal has seen Olympique Lyonnais move up to their highest Money League position of 11th, while Real Madrid and Barcelona’s announcement of new deals should see them challenge at the top of the table in coming years. The Premier League’s recently concluded broadcasting deals may see English teams contribute half of the top 20 clubs in 2007/08,” Alan Switzer commented.

The report did warn,however, that spiralling television deals would be unsustainable if media firms decide they will no longer fork out hundreds of millions for the right to screen matches.It said Italian clubs could also suffer if the government forces clubs to share TV cash rather than negotiate individual deals with broadcasters.

List of World's richest clubs

1 Real Madrid 292.2 million euros
2 Barcelona 259.1
3 Juventus 251.2
4 Manchester United 242.6
5 AC Milan 238.7
6 Chelsea 221.0
7 Inter Milan 206.6
8 Bayern Munich 204.7
9 Arsenal 192.4
10 Liverpool 176.0
11 Olympique Lyon 127.7
12 AS Roma 127.0
13 Newcastle United 124.3
14 Schalke 04 122.9
15 Tottenham Hotspur 107.2
16 Hamburg SV 101.8
17 Manchester City 89.4
18 Rangers 88.5
19 West Ham United 86.9
20 Benfica 85.1

Souce: The Football Money League report