Analysis of Football Money League 2021 by Deloitte

With this article, I would like to shortly analyze the published Football Money League 2021 report by Deloitte. The report looks at the financial performance of the 20 highest revenue generating clubs in the world from the 2019/20 season.

Finding #1

The 20 clubs with the highest revenue are all part of the European Football Associations (UEFA) – no team outside of Europe belongs to the top 20. The following graph shows the distribution among the six countries.

• England has most clubs in the top 20 list
• Germany has more spots than Spain, Italy, and France
• Biggest surprise one team from outside Europe’s big 5 leagues reached the top 20 list – FC Zenit St. Petersburg, Russia

Finding #2

As a logical consequence from finding #1, the clubs from England generate the highest total revenue. However, the three clubs from Spain have the highest mean revenue. This can be explained since FC Barcelona and Real Madrid are ranked first and second with a significant difference to the remaining teams.

The following graph shows the mean revenue and the standard deviation (sd) for each country in detail.

Finding #3

The top 20 clubs aggregated a total decline in revenue of 12.9% compared to the year before. Country-wise Italy, France, and Russia were more affected than the other three countries.

• The top 20 clubs of the football industry are heavily affected by the covid crisis
• The business model of most clubs does not work in times of crisis
• Most clubs failed to save in good times for bad moments like right now
• The GDP decline of the respective countries for 2020 is between 1% to 5% - top 20 clubs are more heavily affected by the covid crisis than other industries

Finding #4

The corona crisis disrupted the 2019/20 football season. After the first lookdown, most leagues restarted their games without spectators in the stands. Matchday revenue is one of the most important revenue streams for football clubs. The following graph shows the correlation between the loss in % (actual revenue compared to the previous year) and matchday (the % of matchday revenue on total revenue).

• The statistical analysis shows no significant correlation between Loss in % vs. Matchday – p>0.05
• Pearson’s r = 0.364 shows a moderate positive relationship between Loss in % and Matchday
• Meaning the higher the % of matchday revenue on total revenue, the higher the % decrease of a club’s revenue compared to pre-covid season
• This finding is reasonable as clubs played most of their games without supporters and thus lost more revenue

Conclusion

The impact of the covid crisis on the top 20 clubs and all other clubs is enormous. Most leagues are still very dependant on matchday revenue. The longer it is not allowed for fans to return to the stadium, the worse the financial situation will turn for football clubs. The crisis showed that it is possible for many clubs to save costs and decrease expenses. At this moment, we should not only look at the development of revenue but also of expenses. It would be interesting to see by what % the clubs could decrease their expenses throughout the covid time. To finish this article, I would love to leave you with a quote - “never waste a crisis”!

Data from

Data GDP

Data Deloitte Football Money League 2021