Despite wider economic pressures, the European football market continues to perform well with its revenue surging to $28.9 billion in 2013/14, said a report.

Within the story of revenue growth across European football, stakeholders from the Middle East continued to play an important role in 2013/14, both from an ownership and sponsorship perspective, according to the 24th Annual Review of Football Finance from the Sports Business Group at Deloitte.

“A review of the financial landscape of European football is now impossible without observing the continued influence of stakeholders from the Middle East," remarked Alexander Thorpe, senior consultant in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte.

"Five of the top eight revenue generating clubs in the world now have Middle East-based shirt sponsors and the involvement of Middle East sponsors is a key part in driving the commercial growth at many of Europe’s biggest clubs. Similarly, the 2013/14 season was one where the impact of Middle East owners was seen on the pitch, with Middle East owned champions in the top divisions of both England and France," he noted.

Deloitte said the growth was largely driven by Europe’s ‘big five’ leagues (Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1, Premier League and Serie A) which saw their combined revenues pass the $15-billion mark.

Dan Jones, partner in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, said: “Each of the ‘big five’ leagues posted record revenue levels for the third successive year in 2013/14, re-emphasizing that the best live football remains ‘premium content’ for broadcasters and that commercial partners will pay handsomely to be associated with Europe’s leading clubs given their global profile.”

A 29 per cent increase in Premier League revenue in 2013/14 saw the Premier League further extend its lead as the highest revenue generating league in the world, with total revenue of $5.3 billion.

England’s top twenty clubs now account for almost 20 per cent of the European football market. The main driver of this growth was broadcast revenue which rose by 48 per cent, fuelled by new domestic and international rights deals.

Jones added: “In 2013/14 even the Premier League club receiving the least from domestic league broadcast distributions earned more from this source than all but five other European clubs. Following recent announcements of commercial deals for a host of the largest clubs, we expect the Premier League to surpass the Bundesliga in commercial revenue terms and hence lead the world in all three key revenue categories from 2014/15.”  

An eighth consecutive year of revenue growth saw the Bundesliga consolidate its position as the second highest revenue generating league in Europe, with total revenue rising 13 per cent to $3.1 billion.

In Spain, La Liga clubs collectively grew revenue by 3 per cent to $2.6 billion in 2013/14, with all of this growth attributable to the two Madrid clubs, with the other 18 clubs’ aggregate revenues down compared with the prior year.

Serie A clubs saw a small increase in total revenue of one per cent to $2.3 billion in 2013/14 with the league continuing to have a greater reliance on broadcast revenue than any of the other ‘big five’ leagues.

Total revenue for Ligue 1 grew by 15 per cent to over $2 billion in 2013/14, led by Paris Saint-Germain’s revenue growth of $102 million.

From a costs perspective, for the first time since 2006/07, each of the ‘big five’ leagues reported a wages/revenue ratio at or below 70 per cent, with four of the ‘big five’ leagues seeing improvements in their ratios in 2013/14 (Bundesliga 49 per cent, Premier League 58 per cent, Ligue 1 64 per cent, Serie A 70 per cent) with La Liga’s worsening to 60 per cent from 57 per cent.

The overall wages/revenue ratio across Europe’s ‘big five’ leagues fell to 59 per cent, its lowest level since 1999/00.

Jones said: “UEFA’s Financial Fair Play Regulations, together with cost control measures in certain domestic leagues, appear to be having an influence on the way in which clubs choose to spend increases in revenue, with less being spent directly on wages. In the past two seasons only 31 per cent of revenue growth across Europe’s ‘big five’ leagues has been spent on wages, in the two years preceding that it was 61 per cent.”

The Premier League’s operating profit of $1 billion in 2013/14 was almost treble the previous record, set by the Bundesliga in 2012/13.

Nineteen of the 20 Premier League clubs reported an operating profit and the league’s overall operating margin increased to 19 per cent. Once again the Bundesliga was the only other ‘big five’ league to report an operating profit, although this fell by five per cent to $339 million.-TradeArabia News Service