LONDON: Spain’s Real Madrid retained the title of the world’s richest soccer club in the past year thanks to sponsorship and TV deals robust enough to endure a season without a major trophy, a study showed yesterday.
Real’s revenue of 519m euros ($704m) put the club ahead of domestic rivals Barcelona in fiscal 2012/2013, with European champions Bayern Munich edging into third ahead of Manchester United, in the annual Football Money League compiled by accountants Deloitte.
Qatari-owned Paris St Germain (PSG), where former England captain David Beckham ended his career last year, underlined its emergence as a soccer power with an 81 percent rise in revenue to almost 400m euros to claim fifth spot.
Revenue for the top 20 teams rose by 8 percent to 5.4bn euros, Deloitte said, underlining the appeal of soccer to broadcasters and sponsors targeting mass consumer markets.
Real Madrid and Barcelona are two of the most consistently successful teams in Europe, fielding top players such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi respectively. The two clubs enjoy the financial advantage of being able to negotiate their own TV deals, rather than pooling TV rights income as teams in other major leagues have to do.
Reuters
