**EDITOR’S NOTE: Since the specific clubs and countries involved changes, and since UEFA tends to increase the payouts, this piece is updated every year; the 2009-10 season is available here, and the 2010-11 season is available here. Enjoy!**
With the start of European competitions already getting into full swing, I wanted to take a look at the money involved and how it benefits the smaller clubs out there. Many of the smaller clubs are largely helped by their performance in the Champions League or Europa League and use that money really as their only spending money to bring players in with.
Initially I was wanting to write an article on how I thought it would be better for a smaller club like FC Zurich, who qualified for the group stages yesterday, to play in the Europa League (formerly the UEFA Cup), because they’d have a better chance of going far in the competition and would probably make some better money. This was me assuming that the gulf between the money in the two competitions wasn’t as massive as it is.
UEFA publishes the monetary breakdown of the money distribution each year in the July edition of their UEFA Direct Magazine (PDF), and the numbers are actually rather interesting. Just for entering the Champions League group stage a team gets 3 million Euros. For getting into the group stage of the UEFA Cup last season teams got €215,000. That’s a massive difference right there, and really means the difference between a smaller team being able to buy 4-5 new players, and only being able to supplement wages for the players.
There is then a participation payout that Champions League teams get, which is €400,000 per match, equaling €2.4 million, assuming a team plays all 6 of their group matches (why wouldn’t they?). However in the UEFA Cup, there is no participation cash, just a performance bonus. CSKA Moscow got €160,000 for winning all 4 of their group stage matches.
Of course though, the Champions League has performance bonuses too, €600,000 per win, and €300,000 per draw. Lucking out and winning a single match in the Champions League nets you more money than all but 8 of the UEFA Cup group stage teams. Of the eight teams who made over a million Euros, four of them came from the Champions League group stages. The other four were well sized clubs from England, Germany, Italy, and France.
There is also the added factor of drawing massive European teams to your home stadium in the Champions League, which of course brings more revenue. Bringing a team like Barcelona to your stadium is certainly going to give you more ticket revenue than probably any of last years UEFA Cup teams (save for AC Milan).
There is one final monetary payout the both competitions have, and that is the Market Pool. The description of how it’s formulated is a little confusing, but I’m assuming it has to deal with the distibution of TV money and various other things. However it’s dealt out, it’s dealt out in large sums.
PSV Eindhoven, who won 1 match and came in last in their group got €19 million. Don’t let that fool you, because eventual champions Barcelona got just €8 million of the Market Pool money. However, the market pool money only went to the final eight UEFA Cup squads, and maxed out just under €5 million for some clubs.
The final number that sticks out is the overall tally for each competition, Champions League teams made almost €600 million combined last season, while the UEFA Cup teams combined for a meager €37 million.
There are plenty of other numbers there, and feel free to explore the document I posted for more breakdown on the numbers, as it’s a pretty interesting read. The main point here is that there is such an incredible gulf in terms of cash flow between the two competitions that the Europa League seems like a joke. I fully understand the reason Martin O’Neil put out a bunch of second and third team players last season, there was no point in playing matches for such little money when they had a Champions League berth at stake which would have multiplied the money they made last year by about 20x.
While the Champions League is obviously the breadwinner of the two competitions, there shouldn’t be as big of a gulf between the compensation for the two. UEFA Cup (and Europa League) involves a good number more matches and typically a lot more travel since there are a higher number of nations in the competition and they’re more spread out.
I’m not saying the money should be split 50/50 as there aren’t the revenues from Europa League to even justify a split anywhere near that, but you could easily double the payouts given to teams and I doubt many people would really even notice. I wasn’t an advocate for the new way of seeding the final group stage qualifiers the way they are, but looking at the numbers how they are, I very much am.
[...] MVP Style Points: Business Socks mulls the travesty that is the NFL’s preseason. Avoiding The Drop: Adam takes us through how money is distributed over the Champions and Europa Leagues. The Rookies: [...]
Yeah, it comes to TV revenue when you get straight down to it, and the glamour of each competition.
The UEFA Champions League is broadcast on every major sports provider you can shake a stick at: Sky Sports, Fox Sports, and…oh hell, just read the list.
The Europa League is broadcast on ITV in England – I believe, could be wrong – and who know what else. Wikipedia didn’t have any substantial information, so I can only assume that they play the matches in cow pastures in the Bermuda Triangle, or some similar nonsense.
Add to that the fact that stadium gates for the Champions League dwarf those of the Europa League – which mystifies me for some clubs like Fulham, whom I would assume would be starved for the opportunity to host any European competition – and it only makes sense that the Champions League holds a greater cachet than the Europa League.
It’s rather disheartening to see scenes like Aston Villa putting the taxi squad out for their UEFA Cup match in Moscow last season, though – even if I can understand why it’s done, and the financial reward for making it to that competition hardly serves as motivation to try to win the trophy.
Maybe it’s childish of me to expect teams to be motivated by a fear and loathing of failure, or an insatiable lust for victory, but it would be nice to see teams not be solely motivated by the almighty dollar.
I think that part of the “gate” issue comes from fans of teams like Fulham not necessarily being prepared to travel abroad to watch them play. Fans of the Big Four travel well, as do Barca, Real Madrid, and Inter fans. Fans of, say, Lokomotiv Moscow? Maybe not so well. Fewer away fans means less gate (note that this is a half-baked theory I’m coming up with before I go to bed, and there could be lots of problems with it…but it feels right).
Absolutely, it’s obviously all relative to the gates, tv, etc. but I think considering the circumstances there should be some monetary distribution among the two competitions.
Theoretically, had Aston Villa bumped Arsenal out of the CL last season, they would have gotten at least 20 million this season, which would have meant 2-3 pretty quality players, improving their chances to make another run and allowing them to build their club, but now even if they win the Europa Cup they’ve got about 8 million in the bank and they’re looking at 1 good player, or 2 decent players which surely isn’t going to give them a boost.
I agree it should be largely about the glory, and I now totally see Villas point in wanting to crash out so that they could get a chance at huge money in the CL, and I think in the long English season that it’s hard to add another 10 or so matches to your schedule and still try to do well in the league if you’re not very deep. Again it comes down to finances though, because if you’re doing well in the league, you’re filling the seats and you’re much more likely to get traveling supporters.
As for the travel thing, I think Mags is probably right. Supporters of big clubs tend to be more able and willing to travel, and probably plan on 1-2 foreign travel dates and going to Lyon is probably more exciting than the Ukraine. As far as home fixtures I think the same can be said, just as when the Lakers come to visit, even a shitty team improves upon their normal attendance.
While I wouldn’t like to see outright parity, I think some parity that a team would have to earn would be good for the game in the long run.
Adam-
how would a team from a smaller league get into champions (no, I’m not thinking of LoI why do you ask)
Every league in Europe gets at least 1 berth, but only 22 teams auto qualify for the group stage. Bohemians got the LoI’s berth, but were eliminated in the second round of qualifying. As for Europa League, the 2nd-4th teams in Ireland get spots. Sligo, Derry City, and St. Patricks Athletic all got bids. Sligo got knocked out in the 1st qualifying round, Derry City made it to the third round, and St. Patricks are playing right now for the group stage, but they lost the 1st leg 3-0.
It’s actually pretty hard for some of the smaller nations like Ireland to make it to the group stage. Most of the smaller leagues who’s representative makes it to the CL group stage do so because they’re the absolute powerhouse in their league, and actually have a good set of international players. This year and beyond it seems league champions will have an easier road to the group stage though as there is a “champions path” and a non champions path. Before everyone who didn’t automatically qualify were lumped into the same group and you’d usually see smaller teams knocked out by large teams from big leagues.
All the info you need is here and here
Thanks again Adam – I was confused why Boh’s weren’t in Europa – and I’m well aware of Sligo’s debacle in Europa too.
Good article, the gulf between the Champions and Europa leagues is tremendous. I feel like it would be in UEFA’s interest to structure the competition so it was more prestigious and hopefully more rewarding!
[...] a portion of the loss will be mitigated by participation in the UEFA Europa League, but given the Grand Canyon sized gulf between the two leagues it is unreasonable to expect that it will put a major dent in Liverpool’s lost [...]