The 2024-30 period is a fresh journey from UEFA. On one hand, there are new formats for senior men’s club competitions which leads to higher revenue for clubs and on the other hand, there’re the growing challenges of clubs’ financial sustainability, tackling multi-club ownership groups, increasing revenue gap between clubs.
The period is also expected to bring a substantial increase in revenues which will be ploughed back into the game. This is clearly a priority for UEFA as per their Strategic Vision 2024-2030. According to the 2024/25 budget, the first season of the new European competition cycle will see gross revenue increase from €3.72bn to €4.52bn, 22% more than 2023/24. With this increase, the distribution budget also goes up by 14% over 2023/24.
In this blog, we look about UEFA’s revenues as a whole and its distribution back to the clubs and nations.
Revenue
UEFA’s revenues are primarily driven by three categories:
- National competitions including UEFA Euros, Nations League and the likes which contributed roughly 11% in 22/23 actuals and expected to reduce to 10% in 24/25 budgeted report
- Club level competitions namely Champions League, Europa League and Conference League who contribute the lion’s share of 85% in 22/23 actuals rising to 87% in 24/25 budgeted figures
- Other competition and revenue, budgeted to be a mere 1% in 24/25
The 24/25 UEFA Budget Report shows that 24/25 forecast figures will cross €5bn mark for the first time. The jump of approximately 19% is mainly driven by the increased Champions League format. The chart (without Euro 2024) given below gives an outline of the revenue breakdown.
The increase is led by a 19% jump over 23/24 in the media rights value to reach €4.29bn which translates to 84% share in the total revenue. In similar fashion, the increased number of club competition matches also adds to the commercial by 20% in jump and tickets & hospitality revenue by a 15% jump, though put together, they contribute the balance 16% in the total revenue.
Distribution
UEFA distributes around 80% of its revenues to the teams participating in UEFA’s competitions. However, the notable difference in 2024/25 budget is that will be that it’s set to cross €4bn mark with €3.97, up by 14% over 23/24, to participating teams and €55.7mn to member associations.
Another key thing is the substantial increase in solidarity payments. For clarifications, solidarity payments are distributed through national associations to clubs to invest in their youth development programmes and/or local community schemes. As per the UEFA 2024-25 Budget Report, solidarity payment will be increased from 7% to 10% of gross revenue up to €4.4bn. In total, €466mn will be put aside for solidarity payments, including solidarity for clubs eliminated in the qualifying phase of the Women’s Champions League. That is a substantial jump of 70% over 2023/24 estimates.
Share of Revenue from UEFA in Leagues
UEFA distributed €2.9bn in the form of prize, participation and solidarity money in 22/23, same as that in 21/22. The figure though is scheduled to rise substantially with some €600mn more as prize money for participating teams in 24/25 and €300mn in extra solidarity for non-participating teams.
Clubs from ‘big five’ leagues aggregated about 62% or €1.81bn in 22/23, just a shade lower than that received in 21/22. This is close to 9.4% of their combined revenue in 22/23 with Premier League clubs earning the highest amount, followed by clubs from LaLiga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1 in that order. For the 20 highest revenue generating clubs, UEFA revenue has a substantial share of 17% in their total revenue.
It’s important to note the importance of revenues from UEFA in the mid-table leagues especially the Portuguese, Austrian and Danish top leagues, share being excess of 30% of the total league revenue.
In Conclusion
UEFA has a lot on their plate right now. With the new format of club level competitions fairly well accepted by the fans and clubs too, it should give them a bit of relief. But the challenges lie in the governance and administrative section where the looking growth of multi-club ownership (MCO) network is set to poise challenges regarding participation.
Also, the Super League renamed Unify League is still lurking around somewhere, the next year will surely test UEFA.
