LONDON: Real Madrid have reclaimed from Manchester City top spot in the annual Deloitte Football Money League. This year also only eight English clubs made the top 20 compared with 11 in 2021-22.
Madrid returned to top spot after increasing their revenues by £119m to £723m off the back of sellout crowds, strong retail performances and increased sponsorship income.
Treble-winning world and European champions City also performed strongly and made a record £718m in revenues during the 2021-22 season.
Liverpool’s poor performances on the pitch led to them dropping from third to seventh, the biggest fall of any club in the top 20, after their revenue dropped from £594.3m to £593.8m; Manchester United (£649m) slipped one place to fifth; Tottenham (£549m) moved up to eighth ahead of Chelsea (£513m) in ninth and Arsenal (£463m) in 10th.
Leicester City, Leeds United and Everton dropped out of the top 20 and were replaced by Eintracht Frankfurt, Napoli and Marseille.
Tim Bridge, lead partner in Deloitte’s Sports Business Group, said: “It shows that the Premier League can’t rest on its laurels. It’s worth noting that while domestic TV rights have risen slightly, the league has had to give away more matches to achieve that.”
“City’s match-day revenue is €83m [£71m],” he said. “But the question is how they can kick over the €100m revenue marker, which is the threshold of clubs with innovative new stadiums. Real Madrid and Barcelona will be way over that figure in the future, and Tottenham are significantly over it now.”
############