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6 months ago
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The four English teams are all out of the 2023/24 Champions League competition, indeed, that has been the case for some time.
Newcastle United and Manchester United exiting at the group stage.
Whilst both Arsenal and Manchester City went out in the quarter-finals.
So how much money have the four English clubs made from playing in this season’s Champions League?
Some excellent analysis, as usual, from Swiss Ramble, has made public exactly how much each club will be getting.
Swiss Ramble describes himself modestly as a ‘Brit blogging from Switzerland, usually about the business of football’ but he is the go to person when it comes to this kind of analysis, he has produced this table of all 32 participants, how much each has made as things stand after the semi-final stage (all figures in millions of euros):
As Swiss Ramble states, these figures are estimates, but in reality any margin of error will be minimal, as many of the payments are set amounts, then you have the payouts from previous seasons to guide you, plus of course the football finance expert’s knowledge.
As you can see, when it comes to English clubs, you get the following total amounts of money (the clubs earn additional money from home ticket sales etc separate to these payments) from the various official competitions payouts:
Manchester City €109m (£95m)
Arsenal €93m (£81m)
Man U €60m (£52m)
Newcastle United €34m (£30m)
So how can this be?
Newcastle United did better than Manchester United, NUFC five points in the group stage from a win and two draws as compared to one win and a draw for Man U, yet get pretty much half as much cash???
Well this is how the totals above were made up, from four separate pots of money.
Man City £95m from Participation £13.5m, Prize Money £33.5m, UEFA Coefficient £29m, TV Pool £19m
Arsenal £81m from Participation £13.5m, Prize Money £29m, UEFA Coefficient £22m, TV Pool £16.5m
Man U £52m from Participation £13.5m, Prize Money £3.5mm, UEFA Coefficient £24.5m, TV Pool £10.5m
Newcastle United £30m from Participation £13.5m, Prize Money £4.5m, UEFA Coefficient £4m, TV Pool £8m
It doesn’t take a genius to work out that sticking out like a sore thumb are the ‘UEFA Coefficient’ payments, as to why Man U are getting almost twice as much cash as Newcastle United.
This is Swiss Ramble’s explanation on the ‘UEFA Coefficient’ payments:
‘The coefficient payment is based on performances in UEFA tournaments over the past 10 years, including a bonus for winning a trophy.
This approach obviously benefits the traditional big clubs, so the big earners here are the usual suspects. As a result, the highest amounts were awarded to Real Madrid €36.4m, Bayern Munich €35.3m, Barcelona €34.1m and Manchester City €33.0m.
Even though they did not make the Champions League in four of the last five years (while not qualifying for Europa at all last season), Arsenal’s ranking has remained high, due to their historically good record and decent performances in the Europa League. This earned them a very respectable €25.0m.
In contrast, clubs that have only recently qualified for the Champions League are effectively penalised by this model, so Newcastle United only received €4.5m. The Geordies didn’t actually have any UEFA 10-year coefficient points, as the last time they played in Europe was 2012/13.
However, a club’s ranking is determined by either the sum of all the points won in the previous 10 years or by the association’s coefficient over the same period, whichever is the higher.
In this way, Newcastle ranking was driven by England’s high country coefficient, though they were still ranked a lowly 29th out of the 32 clubs in the group stage, only ahead of Union Berlin, Lens and Antwerp.’
Swiss Ramble producing the following table which only shows the ‘UEFA Coefficient’ part of the cash for all 32 clubs:
It is an absolute joke.
There is absolutely no logic to this. Never mind fairness!
What relevance has previous participation / success in past years of European competition got to do with this season’s?
It is absolutely laughable that some clubs this season have got tens of millions more of Champions League cash than others, because in previous seasons they have done whatever in Europe.
The same as the Premier League, UEFA go on about the absolute importance of ‘Financial Fair Play’ and yet they do this!!! What is fair about it, financially or otherwise???
As we all know of course, this is simply a cosy arrangement between UEFA and the clubs who already have pretty much all of the money and power. An arrangement that gives those established powerful clubs even more money!
If they wanted to be ‘Fair’ then surely this ‘Coefficient’ pot of money should be shared equally between all 32 clubs.
Or if they really want to be more than ‘Fair’ and help make it more of a level playing field, help those with less money and power to bridge the gap, why not flip it entirely. Give the most money to those clubs who have the lowest Coefficients! To those clubs who have benefitted the least in past years from Champions League riches!!
Europa League and Europa Conference:
Swiss Ramble has also given figures for how much those English clubs in the Europa League and Europa Conference League have made
In the Europa League, Liverpool £23m, Brighton £19m and West Ham £16m. Then Aston Villa £14m in Europa Conference League.

 
