UEFA has just published, and the BBC has just reported on, its “Benchmark Report 2016”. According to the BBC, it “documents everything from club revenues to agents’ fees” and it`s well worth a read if you want to dive into the financial side of football.
Among other things, it benchmarks the Premier League against other leagues, looking at club revenues, wage spend, how TV rights money is split and distributed, etc.
There are a few interesting points in the report. According to it, THFC have the 6th-highest revenue in England, and the 12th highest in Europe with 281 million ? in 2016 (essentially, more than any European club except for the 5 usual suspects in England, Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Juventus and Dortmund). The average revenue in the PL in 2016 is 244.4 million ?.
On average across all PL clubs, revenue stems from the following sources: 46% from domestic broadcasting rights, 6% from UEFA, 16% from gate receipts, 30% from sponsorship/commercial revenues and the remaining 2% from various other sources.
· Looking at wages, 2016 was the first time that the average PL wage bill was more than double that of the next highest-paying league (Germany).
· Across Europe, while revenue grew on average by 9.5% between fiscal years 2015 and 2016, wages only grew 8.6%.
· Across Europe, the average wages-to-revenue ratio is 62.5%. In England, it`s 63%.
· The report also mentions that “among the 20 highest-paying leagues, German club football continues to have the lowest wage to revenue ratios (50%). At the other end of the scale, a number of leagues reported an average wage bill of 70% to 80% of revenue, with Israeli clubs spending on average 80% of all revenue on wages and Ukrainian clubs more than 100%. Given that other, mainly fixed, operating costs tend to absorb between 33% and 40% of revenues, a wage ratio of over 70% is likely to result in losses unless there is a significant surplus from transfer activity (which was the case in Ukraine). This is why it is included as a risk indicator in the UEFA Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations”.
· Looking at THFC`s wage bill, we`ve got the 14th highest wage bill in Europe (AC Milan and Roma, despite having lower revenues, have higher wage bills than us). Of the top 20 clubs listed, THFC are one of only 2 clubs (Milan being the other) whose wage bill actually decreased from 2015 (the average across the top 20 being a growth of 12%).
· The report lists us as having a 50% wages-to-revenues ratio. The average across the top 20 is 61%. We`re one of 5 clubs in that top 20 with a ratio of 50% or less.
· The average PL wage bill in 2016 was 153.9 million ?. Ours was 140 million.
There`s a lot more information on operating costs (ours, at 86 million or 31% of our revenues, are higher than the PL average of 26% but lower than the 33% average across Europe) or profitability (we rank very high). There is also some interesting information about the results of FFP introduction, among other things. For more information, here is the link to the report: https://uefa.app.box.com/v/benchmarking
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