How Man City emerged highest revenue club for the first time with €644.9 million
Manchester City have topped Deloitte’s Football Money League for the first time in their history after emerging from the coronavirus crisis in a stronger position than their rivals.
City have hit top spot after recording revenues of £571.1million for the 2020/21 season and they become just the fourth club to ever lead the Money League. The Blues saw revenues rise by £89.5million and that helped climb from sixth to top, ahead of Real Madrid in second, Bayern Munich in third and Barcelona in fourth.
However, some of City’s commercial deals — which account for nearly half of revenue — are a source of controversy, with a number key partners such as shirt and stadium sponsor Etihad having links to the club’s owners.
The club were 4.2 million euros ahead of Spanish giants Real Madrid, with German champions Bayern Munich next followed by Barcelona and Manchester United.
The clubs in the Money League have missed out on more than two billion euros of revenue over the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons as a result of the pandemic, the Deloitte report said.
Premier League clubs were more insulated due to the much larger television rights deals they enjoy compared with their competitors in the other top European leagues and the gap is likely to widen.
“Premier League broadcast rights values are set to pull further away from the other ‘big five’ European leagues from the 2022/23 season with the rollover of existing domestic arrangements on the same terms and the total value of international rights reportedly set to increase by 30 percent and exceed the value of domestic rights for the first time,” said Dan Jones, head of Deloitte’s Sports Business Group.
Part of the reports said ;
“Manchester City – who ranked above Manchester United for the first time in the 2022 edition of the Money League– are also ahead when compared over a two year period,”
“This period saw City generate greater commercial revenue than that of its cross-city rivals, possibly signalling a long feted ‘changing of the guard’ in terms of the revenue-generating ability of top Premier League clubs” the report added.
