Football's rich list

Recently two different publications have come out with their annual 'rich lists'. The London-based monthly "Football Business International" published the list of the world's 20 wealthiest clubs in the year ending 2002-2003. "France Football", as it does every year, rolled out its list of the world's 20 highest earning players. 18 of the 20 in the clubs list hail from the 'big four' leagues of Europe: the English Premier League, the Italian Serie A, the Spanish Primera Liga and the German Bundesliga. The only interlopers were France's Ligue 1 and the Scottish Premier, with one club each. The highest flier is the English Premier League with seven clubs, two ahead of the Serie A's five. Which might suggest England's showpiece competition is the most affluent in the world. But while England's big seven generated a combined turnover of �1.4b, Italy's big five out-stripped it by a country mile with a combined � 1.9b.  The publication uses total turnover for each club as its mode of measure. The surveyors also break the total figure into three categories for each club. Manchester United, the richest of the rich for the seventh year in a row, pulled in a total of � 350m, composed of � 141m (40%) in 'match day' sales(gate takings, match programs, corporate boxes and on-site merchandise sales), or � 4.27m per game, � 116m from broadcasting, and another � 93m from other commercial enterprises. That picture of modern trends is even more graphic in Italy. Juventus' 'match day' revenue was only 10% of its total, way outstripping United in both areas of broadcasting and commercial enterprises. In other words, if Juventos could fill the Dell'Alpi stadium every home game, like Manchester United does in Old Trafford, it would be the world's richest club. Turning to the players' rich list, the evidence shows even more graphically that the four big leagues are the only games in town. All top 20 money earners play in one of those four leagues, Spain the most prominent with seven entries, followed by England (6), Italy (5) and Germany (2).  David Beckham is the richest of the list. He is on a salary of � 170,000 per week but earns far more � 16m per year in endorsements, � 4m of which comes from Japan alone. Regarding the question of which kind of players command the highest incomes, eight of the top 20 are strikers, eight are midfielders, three are defenders and there's one goalkeeper, Oliver Kahn.

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.