How much do the big clubs earn from participating in the Champions League? UEFA has announced the new prize pool: the figures and criteria with which the over two billion euros in prizes are distributed.
We all know how important it is for the top teams in our championship to be able to complete the first of the seasonal objectives: to finish in the first four places in the ranking, regardless of the trend and performance in the individual phases of the year – well aware that the money and the prizes guaranteed by participation in the Champions League remain the primary source of earnings for a football that after 2020 is suffering the consequences of a system that has shown obvious cracks in terms of economic stability. Playing in Europe is therefore an injection of liquidity from which the biggest football clubs will be able to benefit this season, with UEFA having already revised the overall quota allocated to the 32 participants upwards for a couple of years – up from 1.95 to 2,022 billion euros. How is everything distributed? The scan includes four reference macro-areas that clubs can draw on, which are the following:
- 25% of the total (500.5 million euros, a figure higher than the 488 of the three-year period 2018-21) concern the fixed starting quota
- 30% (600.6 million, also an increase compared to the total 585 in the past) will instead be allocated to amounts linked to the performance and results obtained
- Another 30% (same figure as before) will be assigned on the basis of the rankings given by the ten-year yield coefficients
- The last 15% of the total (300.3 million euros) is linked to the variable quotas linked to the market pool
Champions League 2023-24: participation fee exceeds 15 million euros
If we are talking about liquidity injection, taking part in the group stage of the Champions League is an economic boost that is anything but negligible: being one of the 32 teams drawn in the eight groups in fact allows you to immediately collect 14.8 million euros for each club and then a subsequent addition of 840,000 euros. All this regardless of sporting merit and results is one of the reasons that make the Champions League the main club football tournament and one of the most popular competitions among the best gambling sites in the world.
Champions League 2023-24: bonuses distributed based on results
Being able to get results, to win as many matches as possible, therefore does not become a mere sporting prerogative, but in the case of the Champions League it brings immediate tangible benefits. In fact, each match in the group stage offers the possibility of taking home 2.8 million euros in case of success and 930,000 euros for a draw. For all the allows you to take home around 3 million euros. This therefore leads to the allocation of only part of the 600 million euros intended for this “slice” of prize money, given that the rest is then distributed according to the ability of each individual club to advance during the competition. The amounts expected for that become:
- Qualification for the round of 16: 9.6 million euros
- Qualification for the quarter-finals: 10.6 million euros
- Qualification for the semi-final: 12.5 million euros
- Qualification for the final: 15.5 million euros
- Competition victory: 4.5 million euros
Getting to the end and winning the big-eared cup therefore becomes a question not only of coat of arms, but involves tens of millions of euros – reaching up to a theoretical maximum of 85.14 million euros. Not only that: the winning club also qualifies for the European Super Cup, from whose participation comes a further 3.5 million euros (to which is added another additional amount destined for the club that wins that trophy).
The third factor of revenue distribution: the ten-year ranking of the teams
Another large portion of potential earnings – over 600 million euros – is instead distributed taking into account the ranking of the teams, their performance in international competitions over the last decade, using a very simple mechanism. The total prize money of 600.6 million euros is divided into many small parts of 1.137 million euros, then drawing up a ranking of the 32 clubs competing for the final victory of the Champions League. The worst person, who has collected less than the others, is given only a share – therefore 1.137 million euros. The second to last are awarded two, therefore 2.274 million euros and so on – up to the first, the one that has done best in the last decade, which takes home 32 shares and a total figure of 36.38 million of Euro. Which, added to everything we talked about before, leads to putting together a nice nest egg.
The final component of Champions League earnings: the market pool
We then close with the last part – around 300 million euros – which concerns the television market for match rights and relating to the performance of the 32 clubs taking part in the group stage (distributed among the participating teams of each federation). This quota is divided in two: one half is assigned based on the placement obtained by the teams in the previous national championship in which they took part, following standard percentages assigned previously. To be clear, looking at the example of the Italians of this year: Napoli winners of the Scudetto take home 40%, Lazio who finished second 30%, Inter 20% (despite having reached the final of the last Champions League) and finally fourth-placed Milan have to settle for 10%.
The other half, however, will be composed at a later stage and in relation to the number of actual matches that each of the teams involved in the Champions League manages to play: the longer you stay on the pitch, the more you earn (a fairly elementary concept in fact). The various amounts distributed by the market pool for each individual club can only be calculated after all contracts have been finalized and not before the end of the competition, since the exact amount for each club depends on several factors:
- The actual final market pool amount
- The starting grid of the teams participating in the 2023/24 UEFA Champions League
- The number of clubs participating in the UEFA Champions League 2023/24 for each association
- The final position of each participating club in the previous championship
- The results of each club in the UEFA Champions League 2023/24
More details can be found in the UEFA announcement.