GENEVA (AP) — Britain’s top soccer clubs are making even more money from league prize money this season. champions league.
Six English teams will take part in the Champions League, a record for any single country, and after Wednesday’s opening final round, five teams will advance directly to the round of 16 with a place in the top eight. 36 team standings.
The sixth team, 12th place Newcastle, will be seeded. knockout playoff draw Friday.
England’s six players will receive a total of at least 500 million euros ($600 million) in prize money from UEFA. Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea and Manchester City will all receive an extra 2 million euros (approximately 240 million yen) in prize money if they qualify through Wednesday’s direct qualifiers.
Kieran Maguire, a soccer financier and co-host of the podcast The Price of Football, told The Associated Press on Thursday: “They could easily earn a hefty 100 million euros ($120 million) in prize money, and players who reach the semi-finals and final will earn even more.”
This means that more than one euro ($1) in every five UEFA prize funds will be transferred to England from the nearly 2.5 billion euros (approximately 300 billion yen) that European football’s governing body will distribute to the 36 Champions League clubs this season.
Pressure on other European countries
This is the kind of economic power that has boosted Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus. launch super league Five years ago, I was trying to keep up the pace. A backlash in the UK contributed to the project’s demise.
A measure of England’s Champions League power is that Arsenal are the only team with a perfect eight-win record, while Liverpool and Tottenham finished third and fourth despite underperforming in the Premier League.
Liverpool have won four of their last five games in the Champions League, including against Madrid and Inter, but have only won four of their last 13 in the Premier League. Tottenham are placed 14th in the Premier League table.
Even Newcastle, England’s “worst” team in the Champions League so far, finished the league table ahead of three of the five Spanish teams, three of the four Italian entries and three of the four German teams.
Spain’s share of the prize money will take a further hit after Athletic Bilbao and Villarreal failed to even qualify for the 24-team knockout stage. Serie A champions Napoli and Eintracht Frankfurt were also eliminated.
Italy struggles
Italy are not even certain of making it to the round of 16, with even top-flight team Inter Milan, who have reached two of the last three Champions League finals, only 10th in the table. Juventus finished 13th and Atalanta 15th.
Mr Maguire, who teaches at the University of Liverpool, said: “It means wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small number of clubs.”
This dominance has been fueled by 30 years of increasing wealth from the Premier League’s worldwide broadcast contracts worth billions of dollars each season.
The nine-figure annual Premier League prize money paid to each of the 20 clubs means that even mid-table teams can afford to pay more in transfer fees and wages than Champions League regulars in other parts of Europe.
Bonus Champions League qualification
The expansion of last season’s Champions League to include four more teams in a new format created new opportunities for England. This decision was made due to pressure on the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). influential european soccer clubs group.
Two of the four additional spots will be awarded to the two countries with the best overall results in the previous season’s UEFA competitions. Last year, Tottenham won the Europa League title and Chelsea won the Conference League title, and all four English teams, including Aston Villa, advanced to the Champions League knockout stages and easily secured bonus spots. Spain got the other.
The bonus system, which Maguire described as “pretty strange”, appears to have created a momentum that will reward the team for finishing fifth in the Premier League every year for the foreseeable future.
England are far ahead in that respect. UEFA management ranking table This season, Poland are aiming for a second bonus entry thanks to their strong performances. 3rd tier conference league.
“We’ve secretly got Super League,” Maguire said, alluding to the financial power of the Premier League and its top-earning clubs. “And that means other clubs have to accept their place in the football hierarchy.
“Or we have to learn to be very smart to overcome the deficit.”
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