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Now in a new format and with a fresh look, the report again provides the most authoritative, detailed, and comprehensive review of the European football finance landscape. As highlighted in the autumn’s sister ‘European Club Talent and Competition Landscape Report’, interest in European football has never been so high, with attendance records broken across Europe. The wider finances reflect this, with all revenue streams growing fast and total 2023 revenues set to grow at a record pace. The strong level of club acquisitions and investments from across the globe also continue to highlight the confidence investors have in European football and its unique attractiveness.
Indeed, the report shows that first division club revenues reached a record level of just under €24bn in the 2022 financial year despite some lingering pandemic impacts. Based on early club revenue submissions, revenue is anticipated to grow to beyond €26bn in the 2023 financial year. The report adds that despite the pandemic, European club football revenues have grown at a rate of more than a billion euros a year between 2013 and 2023 from €15bn to this projected €26bn.
UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin said, “European football’s success is built on open competitions, sporting excellence, and unity within the European football pyramid. It emerges from both on-field contests and healthy rivalry that goes well beyond the field of play and is based on sporting merit and solidarity, the very fundamentals of the game. This model highlights the importance of revenue generated at the pinnacle of the football pyramid to sustain its base at the grassroots level and provide the much-needed funding to foster its growth. And the European Club Finance and Investment Landscape is a true testament to UEFA’s role in upholding it.”
In fact, the report shows that 93.5% of UEFA club competition revenue is channelled back to the participating clubs, with the remaining 6.5% reinvested into grassroots funding for the amateur game at the national level. It also states that over the past decade, revenues from UEFA competitions have surged by a staggering 122%.
The European sports model is working in terms of generating unprecedented revenue and in ensuring fair distribution. The President adds: “This enduring model underpins European football’s vigour, resilience, and exceptional growth. Conversations with essential stakeholders, such as national associations, clubs, leagues, players, and fans, confirm that the blueprint for this success lies in adhering to a meritocratic approach, which must be preserved.”
Not that UEFA or European football is resting on its laurels. The reports notes that club wages increased significantly across the pandemic despite the lost revenues and depressed transfer market during the 2020-2021 period, with wage levels being unsustainable in several leagues in 2022, absorbing 89% of revenue at French clubs, 88% at Belgian and Turkish clubs, and 83% at Italian clubs.
Andrea Traverso, UEFA’s Director of Financial Sustainability & Research, states in his introduction: “However, there are signs that stakeholders’ cooperation and new regulations are already having an effect. Faced by strengthened incoming squad cost controls led by UEFA, there are strong signs in the latest figures that clubs are taking stock and trying to get their costs under control. In 2023, player wages increased by less than 1%, the lowest growth level on record, contributing to the re-balancing of the wages/revenue ratio for many clubs.”
The new-look report, one of two accompanying reports that UEFA publishes each year, analyses the finances of over 700 clubs, and includes KPI tables for all 55 countries, this providing the definitive picture of club finances as club football moves beyond the pandemic. As President Čeferin concludes: “This report charts a clear vision for the future – one of stability, strength, and an ongoing success story that must continue to belong to the many, not the few.”
