LONDON, Feb 26: English Premier League clubs enjoyed an increase in television revenue almost equal to the rest of European club football combined between 2014 and 2024, a new UEFA report has revealed.
English clubs benefited from an increase of €1.5 billion (US$1.77 billion) over the decade.
During the same period, the combined TV revenue increase across clubs from the 53 other European top-division leagues was €1.6 billion (US$1.9 billion), highlighting the English top flight’s financial dominance.
England provided five of the eight clubs to automatically qualify for the last 16 of this season’s Champions League, with Newcastle becoming the sixth when they completed a 9-3 aggregate victory over Qarabag on Tuesday.
The data was contained in UEFA’s European Club Finance and Investment Landscape report published on Thursday morning.
The report also highlighted the inequality of total revenue growth across Europe.
While EPL clubs’ total revenue increased by €3.5 billion (US$4.1 billion) and clubs in Europe’s other four major leagues in France, Germany, Italy and Spain grew by €5.9 billion (US$6.9 billion), the continent’s other 649 clubs saw growth of only €3.5 billion (US$4.1 billion) combined.
The EPL’S financial might was also demonstrated in transfer net spend figures.
UEFA looked at the audited notes of clubs’ financial statements from 2021 to 2025, covering the impact of all transfer activity across the five years, including profits on sale, amortisation from previous transfers, impairments and so on.
Based on that, it found the impact of transfer costs was largest at Manchester United, whose net transfer spend was €794 million (US$936 million), ahead of Chelsea on €754 million (US$889 million) and Arsenal on €675 million (US$796 million).
The report said the total revenue of European clubs was set to break the €30 billion (US$35.4 billion) barrier for the first time in 2025. Revenues passed €20 billion (US$23.6 billion) in 2017 and €10 billion (US$11.8 billion) in 2007.
–BERNAMA-PA Media/dpa