Top european clubs and their profits or losses for last season

Top european clubs and their profits or losses for last season

The KPMG Football Benchmark's "European Champions Report" analysed the finances of the champions of England, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Netherlands, Turkey and Portugal.

The second football season impacted by the COVID19 pandemic is showing further disruption in the financial performances of the champions of Europe’s eight prominent leagues, according to the 6th edition of KPMG Football Benchmark. As expected, total revenues of most clubs are still below their pre-pandemic level in an industry characterized by a predominantly rigid cost structure. Champions recorded massive losses for the financial year which ended in May/June 2021.

While there were a few exceptions, the most common trend seen was that operating revenues – hit hard by a nearly complete loss of matchday income, but mitigated by stable or increasing broadcasting and commercial revenues, at least when compared with the previous football season – could not make up for generally high staff costs and decreasing player trading income. Importantly, those revenue growth figures were mostly related to broadcasting income impacted by the delayed payments for matches postponed in the previous, 2019/20 season.

The composition of the eight champions is another sign of the disruption as, in contrast to previous years, we find only one club retaining their internal title, namely FC Bayern München winning the German Bundesliga again, their 31st league trophy and the 9th in a row. AFC Ajax could have been the other such club, but the Dutch Eredivisie was curtailed without declaring a champion in the spring of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite Ajax leading the league table. In contrast, Portugal’s Sporting CP regained their domestic league title after 19 years, Italy’s FC Internazionale after 10 years, France’s Lille after nine years, while Spain’s Atlético de Madrid secured their first La Liga trophy since the 2013/14 season. Turkey’s Beşiktaş JK became champions again after three years, and Manchester City FC clinched back the Premier League throne from Liverpool after only one year.

Manchester City FC have been the only champions to could register not only annual growth in total operating revenues, but surpass their total income of the last pre-COVID season of 2018/19 as well. Their total income of EUR 644m, the highest among the champions, is ten times more than that of Turkey’s Beşiktaş JK or Portugal’s Sporting CP. Furthermore, they have also been able to leapfrog city rivals Manchester United FC (who saw € 557M) for the first time. FC Internazionale also registered a significant growth (19%) in total operating revenues, but still almost € 20M less than in the last pre-COVID season. Matchday revenue loss, operating costs growth and low income on player trading activities led to a record net loss of € 245.6M in 2020/21, the highest ever recorded by an Italian football club.

While Lille saw their total operating revenues drop year on year, they are the only champions to record higher overall revenues in both the past two pandemic-hit seasons than pre-COVID, mainly due to better performances in UEFA tournaments. However, diminished revenues, coupled with consistent staff costs, resulted in a staff costs-to-operating revenue ratio of 106%, the highest among these clubs.

Matchday revenues were wiped out almost completely for all of these clubs, as this revenue stream was impacted the most by the pandemic. Despite some domestic regulations allowing for limited capacity in stadia in the beginning or at the end of the season, matchday income was near nil for most clubs. By comparison, the same eight clubs collected an aggregate € 359M in matchday income in 2018/19, the latest season before COVID.

All the six clubs registering an annual increase in their broadcasting revenues benefited significantly from the deferred income related to the 2019/20 sporting season’s postponed matches, which were finally played after June 2020, both in their domestic leagues and in UEFA competitions. The biggest growth was realised by those who progressed to the last phases of a continental tournament – specifically, FC Internazionale competed four games of their Europa League campaign in August 2020, while both Manchester City FC and Atlético de Madrid cashed in on their postponed UCL ties.

The two champions who could not increase their broadcasting income, namely LOSC Lille and AFC Ajax, have not received such deferred payments: in both the French Ligue1 and the Dutch Eredivisie the 2019/20 season was cut short and unfinished in the spring of 2020, and neither of the two sides had postponed continental ties either.

Most champions suffered severe losses in their bottom line, as matchday revenues loss and the lower player trading income – only partially mitigated by deferred broadcasting revenues – were not accompanied by a similar decrease in operating costs. The only exception are German champions FC Bayern München, who managed to achieve a consecutive 29th profitable year.

The Bavarian club, who boast a balance between on-pitch competitiveness and financial sustainability over three decades, represent one of the best management models in European sports history. In contrast, FC Internazionale and Atlético de Madrid accounted for the highest annual losses in the sample, at € 245.6M and € 111.7M respectively. However, they are far from the historical record net loss of € 481.3M suffered by FC Barcelona in the same season. Beşiktaş JK have been the sole champions to achieve improvement in their bottom line figure: although recording a net loss of € 44.4M.

Looking at the social popularity of these champions, we can see that AFC Ajax and FC Bayern München have more followers than the other clubs competing in their league combined. In absolute values, the Bavarians are the most followed club in the sample (104M total followers), closely trailed by Manchester City FC (98M), while they are 8th and 9th in the overall ranking, which is dominated by Spanish giants FC Barcelona (282M) and Real Madrid CF (279M). The lowest ratio in our analysis is recorded by LOSC Lille, whose 4m followers make up only 2% of all the other Ligue 1 clubs, dominated by the 143M followers of Paris Saint-Germain FC.

Bayern Munich were the only champions from Europe's top eight leagues to make a profit in 2020-21 as the coronavirus pandemic hit European football, the report has revealed.