Deloitte — a global provider of audit and insurance information — has just presented the top 20 richest football clubs in the world and for the first time, more than half of the clubs included are from the Premier League.

For the second consecutive year, current Premier League champions Manchester City are top of the list with reported revenues of £619m (approx. $760m USD) from the 2021-22 season. Real Madrid has ranked second (approx. $745m USD), while Liverpool climbs four places to third, overtaking Manchester United for the first time since the report began 27 years ago.

Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool increased its revenues by £106.9m (approx. $130m USD) last season, mainly from the club’s additional broadcast income from reaching the Champions League final and from being one of the only clubs to report more than $100m USD match day incomes following the Coronavirus pandemic.

Elsewhere in the Premier League, Chelsea, Tottenham, and Arsenal ranked eighth, ninth, and 10th respectively and the surprise rankers came in the form of Leicester, Leeds, Everton, and Newcastle who are all in the top 20.

As per The Guardian, Deloitte’s assistant director, Zal Udwadia, said: “If you expand the rankings to include the top 30, there are 16 Premier League clubs in there. It’s only a matter of time before all 20 top-flight English teams feature in the top 30.”

Spanish giants Barcelona and Real Madrid have yet to recover from their pre-pandemic revenue levels, with the El Clásico rivals reporting revenue losses of £177m (approx. $220 USD) and £38m (approx. $47m USD) respectively from 2018-19.

Deloitte’s report was published soon after the outgoing of Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli, who warned that the dominance of the Premier League was bad for the rest of Europe. As per The Guardian, he said: “I believed and still believe that European soccer needs structural reforms to tackle the future. 

“Otherwise, we are heading for inexorable decline for football in favor of a dominant league, the Premier League, which over a few years will attract all the European talent and marginalize the others.”

In other sports news, Qatar has reportedly been given priority for a Liverpool takeover bid.
Source: Read Full Article