Barcelona tops money league

Business Desk Published: 14 January 2020, 06:26 PM

Barcelona has topped the list of football's highest earning clubs for the first time - while one-time leader Manchester United faces a slide down the league table.

The Spanish club saw revenues grow by more than a fifth to £741m in the 2018-19 season to overtake rival Real Madrid, who could only manage £667m.

Manchester United, in third on £627m, risks losing its position as the Premier League's top earning club for the first time after failing to qualify for the Champions League.

Together the 20 highest earning football clubs in the world generated a record £8.2bn, or €9.3bn, of revenue over the season, according the money league compiled by Deloitte.

Dan Jones, partner in the sports business group at Deloitte, said: "Growth in the football industry continues to outpace that in other sectors, and the top 20 money league clubs are on track to generate over €10bn collectively in a single year in the near future."

Eight English clubs were in the list, with Manchester United in third followed by champions Manchester City in sixth with revenues of £538m, and Champions League winners Liverpool seventh (£533m).

Deloitte said that, with United's revenues for 2019-20 currently forecast at £560m to £580m due to not qualifying for the Champions League, the club ran the risk of losing its position as the Premier League's biggest earner for the first time.

Tottenham was eighth on £459m in the latest table.

It meant the north London club overtook Chelsea and Arsenal to become the capital's highest earning side, during a season when the team moved into a new stadium and reached the Champions League final.

Chelsea sat at ninth on £452m with Arsenal 11th (£393m) followed by West Ham at 18th (£191m) and Everton in 19th (£188m).

Elsewhere the arrival at Juventus of star forward Cristiano Ronaldo - who has more Instagram followers than Real Madrid and Barcelona combined - bolstered the Italian team's commercial income and merchandising.

With revenues rising 17% to £405m, Juve climbed from 11th to 10th place.

For the 20 clubs as a whole, broadcasting remained the biggest individual source of revenue, at 44%.

But the very top-ranked clubs among them, able to attract substantial commercial interest, were less reliant on this TV income.

Barcelona's rise to the top was attributed to its decision to bring merchandising and licensing in house rather than relying on third parties.

Here is the full list of the top 20 in the Deloitte money league (with revenues in brackets) for the 2018/19 season

1. Barcelona (£741.1m)

2. Real Madrid (£667.5m)

3. Manchester United (£627.1m)

4. Bayern Munich (£581.8m)

5. Paris Saint-Germain (£560.5m)

6. Manchester City (£538.2m)

7. Liverpool (£533m)