European club revenues rose to a record level of almost €24bn ($25.82bn) in 2022 thanks to rising commercial income and are set to rise even higher in 2023, according to a new report published today (Thursday) by European governing body Uefa.
According to analysis of more than 700 top-flight clubs in Uefa’s European Club Finance and Investment Landscape report, total club revenues of €23.9bn in 2022 represented a 13-per-cent increase on 2021 and were four per cent higher than the pre-pandemic record of €23bn set in 2019.
The Uefa report, previously called the European Club Footballing Landscape report, also analysed 2023 income from early-reporting clubs and predicts that total revenue will grow beyond €26bn for 2023, with commercial income exceeding domestic TV revenue for the first time.
Top-division clubs received a record €7.8bn of commercial revenues in the 2022 financial year, a 14-per-cent increase on 2021. Within commercial revenues, sponsorship revenues were up by eight per cent, while other commercial revenues were up by 27 per cent., boosted by the removal of restrictions on the use of stadiums and increases in merchandising revenue.
Early-reporting clubs’ commercial revenue increased strongly in 2023, rising by more than €700m year-on-year to stand at €5.4bn, an increase of 14 per cent. The figure represents a hefty 30-per-cent rise on the pre-pandemic level from 2019, with 80 per cent of early-reporting clubs enjoying increases in commercial revenue in 2023.
Once all 700+ top-division clubs have reported their 2023 income, Uefa predicts that commercial revenue streams will exceed domestic TV revenue for “the first time in decades”.
Europe’s top-division clubs reported €8bn of TV revenue from domestic football in 2022 – down four per cent on 2019 and down 0.5 per cent on the average for the 2020 and 2021 seasons.
With sponsorship and commercial revenue representing between 40 and 50 per cent of total club revenues, Uefa expressed concern at what it says is now the “main source of imbalance between clubs”.
Andrea Traverso, Uefa’s director of financial sustainability and research, said the reported highlighted “the importance in implementing strict rules on the fair value assessment of related party transactions”, and that “newly approved financial sustainability rules grant Uefa’s independent club financial control body more investigative and disciplinary power than ever before”.
Traverso added: “The current context demands strict enforcement of cost control regulations and more harmonisation of financial rules between leagues. This is paramount to limit overspending, ‘creative finance’, and rules’ circumvention. As long as differences on key regulatory matters continue between leagues, inflationary tensions will persist, contributing to imbalances and instability.”
Growing trend of multi-club ownership
The reports notes that more than 300 clubs worldwide are now part of multi-club investment groups, up from less than 100 five years ago and less than 40 in 2012. It calculates that a total of 105 top-division European clubs (13 per cent of all Uefa clubs) now have a cross-investment relationship with one or more other clubs.
It also notes that 39 top divisions have restrictions on multi-club ownership, ranging from limits on the size of shareholdings to a total ban on owning shares in more than one club within the league or country.
On aggregate, clubs reported €12.8bn of player wages in 2022, which represented a 4.7-per-cent increase on 2021 and a 13-per-cent rise on the pre-pandemic level of 2019.
Based on early-reporting clubs’ data, player wages were set to increase by less than one per cent in 2023, the lowest growth level on record. However, concerns were also expressed on 2022 wage/revenue ratios in several leagues. Those of most concern were France (89 per cent of revenue), Belgium and Turkey (both 88 per cent) and Italy (83 per cent).
A further concern was rising debt levels across European clubs, with bank debts expected to pass the €12bn mark in 2023, a 50-per-cent rise on the pre-pandemic level.