This was repeatedly called the £100million final. But is that true?
Manchester United have potentially missed out on much more after losing the Europa League final, while Tottenham could reap rewards well into nine figures.
The consequences of this result – Tottenham Hotspur one, Manchester United nil – could reverberate for years to come, affecting each club’s revenue, the players they can attract, and how they plan for the future.
‘We have two plans, even for the market, and we have to understand it’s tough for a club like ours not to be in the Champions League,’ Ruben Amorim admitted after the defeat.
Mail Sport has calculated the potential lost income to Manchester United based on several factors – and it can reach higher than £150million.
First of all, there’s the immediate shortfall of being the runners-up rather than the winners. Then, there’s the lost prize money, matchday income, and sponsorship deals from the Champions League campaign that they have not qualified for. Let’s get into it.
Manchester United have not just lost out on silverware – they’ve missed out on potentially £166.15m in additional earnings
Tottenham, meanwhile, have set the wheels in motion for a potential boost of up to £148.6m
This is a sliding doors moment which will impact each of the clubs for years to come
Winning the Europa League bags you £10.95m in prize money, while the losing finalists earn £5.9m, so there’s an immediate disparity of £5.05m.
There’s also qualification for the European Super Cup, which is worth a minimum of £3.4m, and up to £4.25m if you win.
But the real kick in the teeth is the missed income from their now non-existent Champions League campaign.
‘A good season in the Champions League can be worth far in excess of £100m,’ football finance expert Kieran Maguire recently told BBC Sport.
‘By the time you combine gate receipts, sponsor bonuses and the prize money available, the numbers involved are eye-watering.’
Every club that qualifies for the league phase earns an automatic windfall of £15.7m in prize money – even if they lose every match and finish dead last.
But a win in the league phase is worth £1.8m, and a draw is worth £600,000. So, if you manage to win every group game, you’d earn yourself a pretty £14m.
Every position in the league phase is worth £230,000. The team who finished bottom this season, Young Boys, will have earned £230,000. For coming top, Liverpool banked £8.3m.
Spurs have banked an immediate £10.95m in prize money – already £5.05m more than United
The London club are on course for a minimum gain of £43.98m, but likely much more
Moreover, you’re given a bonus of £1.7m for finishing in the top eight of the league phase, and around £0.85m for finishing ninth to 16th.
We’re not done there – you’re also handed a qualification bonus of £9.3m for reaching the last 16.
From there, the rewards rise stratospherically. Reaching the quarter-finals is worth an extra £10.5m, the semis are worth £12.6m, and making the final gives another boost of £16.6m.
If you go on and win the final, you bank an extra £5.5m compared to the runners-up.
So, just going off prize money alone, if we’re assuming that Tottenham go on and have a perfect Super Cup and Champions League campaign, they’d be £103.9m BETTER OFF than Manchester United by June next year. And that’s not even counting gate receipts and other factors.
Tottenham’s average gate yield is around £4.9m, so they could earn between £19.6m and £39.2m from Champions League home games – a minimum of four and a maximum of eight.
That range for United would have been £24m-£48m, given their average matchday income is around the £6m range, according to Kieran Maguire.
Moreover, United are set to face a £10m penalty from Adidas on their 10-year sponsorship deal for failing to reach the Champions League.
Teams are awarded an automatic £15.7m for reaching the Champions League league phase
Teams pocket £1.8m for every win, and £230,000 for every place in the league table
The prize money even just for reaching the last 16 of the Champions League can be up to £44.3m
So, let’s breathe and do some maths. Taking the wild assumption that Manchester United had won the Europa League and that everything would have gone perfectly next season, we’d be looking at a monetary gain of £166.15m for the Red Devils (including avoiding the £10m Adidas dock) compared to just being runners-up in the Europa League. This is all the potential money they’ve lost out on.
But Spurs have won the Europa League, so there’s £10.95m. And they could win the Super Cup to add £4.25m to their pockets. And they could embark on a perfect Champions League campaign and generate an estimated £133.4m from that.
Add it all up, and even without factoring in any sponsorship considerations or away day income, Spurs could be lining their pockets with up to £148.6m.
And if we wanted to, we could even extrapolate from there. What would it look like if they then counted the possible Club World Cup earnings? Answer: even more wonga.
Now, I hear the voices of cynicism crying from the back: isn’t it ridiculous to assume a perfect Champions League campaign? And yes, you’d be right – that certainly is far-fetched.
So let’s assume the worst-case scenario, then something more realistic.
In the worst case after winning the Europa League, United could have blown the Super Cup final, then lost every Champions League league phase game.
Even if that had transpired, rather than just banking the £5.9m they’ve got, United could have lined their coffers with an additional £58.38m.
Winning the Europa League and going on to win the Champions League could be worth almost £150m to Spurs
By contrast, United have pocketed a mere £5.9m from Wednesday night’s exploits
And let’s say, for example, that United had gone replicated Aston Villa’s Champions League season: eighth in the league phase via five wins, a draw, and two defeats, then a run to the quarter-finals. Not out of the realms of possibility.
In that scenario, United’s additional bank balance would have been around £104.52m. That’s taking in the extra prize money, matchday revenue, and saved sponsorship money that we know of.
It’s from that rough ball park of a solid Champions League campaign that the £100m tag comes in.
Of course, none of this is an exact science. There’s no way of knowing away day revenue, what partnerships they could have had, and other sponsorship bonuses. You would also have to deduct player and staff bonuses off any ultimate figure.
For example, Manchester United’s squad reportedly had their wages cut by 25 per cent after failing to qualify for the Champions League for this season. It is unclear if that wage axe applies again.
What we do believe is that Casemiro has missed out on a £125,000-a-week pay rise – around £6.5m per year. That’s the sort of figure which would quickly eat into any projected earnings.
Ultimately, what we can say for sure is that United have missed out on a lot of money. And Spurs, even in the worst-case scenario, are set to gain tens of millions.
