Football’s Billions – What Recession!

Football it seems just continues to grow according to  the Deloitte Annual Report on Football Finance (May 2012).

Football in Europe grew by 4% to €16.9 billion in 2010/11, with the ‘big five’ leagues’ revenues growing by 2% to €8.6 billion. The main reason according to the Report was  broadcast media, followed by commercial revenue.

It is the English Premier League that is the front-runner of the European Leagues in financial terms generating €2.5 billion in 2010/11 with growth of 12% on the previous year. All this in a recession.

By contrast the German Bundesliga’s revenue grew 5% to €1,746m, although its clubs have the highest commercial revenue at €816m.

All of this is well and good but what about the costs? Surely they haven’t remained static? Well, they haven’t, in the ‘big five’ leagues’ wages increased by over €104m (2%) to exceed €5.6 billion in 2010/11 – less than revenue though.

While the Premier League tops the table of wages costs, it is, together with the Bundesliga, achieving an operating profit. The others do not.

Interestingly the disparity between the Premier League clubs and the rest of the league clubs continued to grow with the top professional clubs growing their revenues by 9% to £2.9 billion in 2010/11, while Premier League clubs’ revenues increased by 12% to £2.3 billion. Even within the Premier League, there is inequality according to Deloittes: “the majority if the £83 million increase in Premier League clubs’ commercial revenues was driven by the two Manchester clubs and Liverpool. Clubs with stronger global profiles and interest earned significantly more than UK or regionally focused clubs who found market conditions more challenging.” Only four Championship clubs made an operating profit.

Out of all that, the top 92 clubs paid almost £1.2 billion in tax to HMRC in one way or another, and this with all the publicity surrounding the tax mitigation techniques adopted by the clubs.

It seems therefore that football is in a very healthy state, financially at least!

(All information sourced from: Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance (May 2012))