Financially, the distance between the Premier League and other top leagues in Europe is getting wider, as seen in the latest football club finance report released by international financial advisory firm Deloitte.

The 26th edition of the Deloitte Football Money League covers the revenues of football clubs in the 2021-2022 football season, in fact the first since the pandemic and quarantine. For the first time in 26 years, more than half of the teams in the top 20 by revenue come from the same country.

According to Deloitte, the top 20 teams in the league by revenue earned a combined €9.2 billion last season, up 13% from the €8.2 billion the top 20 teams had in the 2020-2021 season. This increase is entirely attributable to the return of fans to stadiums as matchday revenue rose from €111m to €1.4bn following the lifting of coronavirus restrictions.

The rise in commercial revenues of the top 20 clubs from €3.5bn to €3.8bn was effectively offset by a €485m drop in broadcasting revenues. The latter, however, is due to an increase in TV rights revenue in 2020–2021, thanks to the addition of postponed match revenue from the previous period ending June 30, 2020.

A striking element of this year’s rankings is the absolute dominance of the Premier League. It’s not just that English club Manchester City was the most profitable club, but that 11 of the top 20 and 16 of the top 30 teams in the ranking belong to the Premier League – more than half – for the first time in history. Deloitte’s 26-year history of research.

The city topped the revenue table for the second consecutive time with €731m, with more than half (€373m) coming from the commercial activities of the English champions.

They are followed by Real Madrid with 714 million euros, Liverpool with 702 million, Man. United with €689m and Paris Saint-Germain with €654m. In particular, Liverpool moved up four places, moving up to third from seventh in the previous rankings.

The top 20 also included two new players, both from the Premier League: Leeds (18th) and Newcastle (20th).

The distance between English teams and other big European clubs is widening, with the top five English teams (Manchester City and United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham) also recording revenue increases of over 15% each, and in a total of 226 million euros per year. There is also a new entry in the top ten and that is another English team, Arsenal.

The top club by revenue in the 2021-2022 season is Manchester City with €731m. Of these, 373 euros is accounted for by the commercial activities of the English champions.

In contrast, Barcelona and Real Madrid have not been able to recover the level of income they received in the previous season before the pandemic (that is, in 2018-19). The Catalan club in particular recorded a €203m decline from three years earlier, even dropping three places in the club rankings from fourth to seventh place. European champions Real Madrid are also 43 million euros behind the pre-pandemic period.

Particularly in the case of Barcelona, ​​the bad European course of the Blaugrana last season played a role, while the club’s women’s team is on the opposite course: with revenues of 7.7 million euros, they lead the corresponding table. published by Deloitte for the first time, which also shows the growing interest in women’s football.

It is easy to conclude that the Premier League is ahead of the other top leagues in Europe every year. And this is based primarily on the fact that this is the league that sports fans across the universe want to watch more than any other.

The above is the basis of the Premier League’s huge numerical superiority over other leagues that can sell more tickets (Bundesliga) or have clubs with more European trophies (La Liga) but not have the fan base they enjoy on a global scale. English teams in general, neither the prestige of the Premier League, nor fielding the best English clubs with very few exceptions.

It’s these factors that drive big returns for a flawlessly organized league that has been around for three decades and is a magnet for leading investors from continental Europe and the US to the Middle and Far East.

And as money begets money, these investors in turn bring in capital, which has a variable rate of return, but certainly inflates football costs and transfer costs at a rate disproportionate to mainland Europe. As such, television and commercial rights remain at the highest level in the Premier League, ticket and merchandise revenues (t-shirts, flags, scarves, etc.) skyrocket once fans return to the stadiums, and match-by-match outcomes remain unpredictable. global interest in the English league.

Previously, former Premier League boss Richard Scudamore cited two other reasons for England’s league supremacy: authentic English football heritage, and the fact that matches are played in England due to Britain’s geographic location during hours when both Asia and Australia, and America (North and South) are on the same 24 hour clock.

It is also reminded that the temporary threat from the European Super League in the spring of 2021 has gone into… a box thanks to another factor that keeps the Premier League at the top: English fans, who, despite any exceptions of bad behavior, are a role model if nothing more than respect for the opponent and, above all, for sports ideals.

Numbers that make you dizzy

9.2 billion euros represents the sum of the revenues of the 20 most profitable clubs in Europe in the 2021-22 football season,
13% increased compared to the previous period.
731 million euros – Manchester City’s revenue in the 2021-2022 season, the second consecutive season in which the English champions topped the Deloitte Football Money League rankings.
16 teams The Premier Leagues are among the 30 most profitable clubs in Europe. That is, it is about 80% of the teams in the top English division.
203 million euros is the decline in Barcelona’s revenue in the 2021-2022 season compared to the last pre-pandemic 2018-19 season, also due to the team’s poor performance in Europe.
7.7 million euros – income of the women’s team of Barcelona in 2021-2022, which, unlike the men’s team, climbed to the top of the Deloitte table.