The business of football

Mar­i­ano Browne

The FI­FA World Cup is the largest sin­gle-event sport­ing com­pe­ti­tion in the world. No sin­gle sport­ing event match­es the sin­gu­lar, world­wide fo­cus and tele­vi­sion view­er­ship of the World Cup.

The 2026 ver­sion is es­ti­mat­ed to have reached over 5 bil­lion peo­ple, out of the world’s 8.3 bil­lion. It is the most pop­u­lar sport be­cause it is sim­ple; the rules are easy to learn, it re­quires on­ly a ball and an open space, and it is ac­ces­si­ble to al­most any­one. Many of the world’s top foot­ballers learned to play on the streets

If one were to ask which were the most suc­cess­ful foot­ball clubs in the world, the an­swer would de­pend on your mea­sure of suc­cess. If suc­cess is de­ter­mined by the num­ber of of­fi­cial tro­phies won across na­tion­al, con­ti­nen­tal, and in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions, the club names would sur­prise you.

The three top clubs are Al Ahly in Egypt with 125 tro­phies, Rangers in Scot­land with 118 and Club Na­cional in Uruguay with 113. Re­al Madrid and Barcelona are fifth and sixth with 102 and 103 tro­phies re­spec­tive­ly.

The pic­ture changes dra­mat­i­cal­ly when it comes to as­sess­ing the fi­nan­cial­ly suc­cess­ful clubs. Be­cause of its glob­al reach and wide au­di­ence, foot­ball is big busi­ness.

The rich­est clubs and the biggest leagues are in the rich­er economies, pri­mar­i­ly in Eu­rope. The most pop­u­lar and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly known foot­ball clubs func­tion as glob­al en­ter­tain­ment cor­po­ra­tions and are glob­al brands. They are in the busi­ness of pro­fes­sion­al sport.

The rich­est foot­ball clubs are Re­al Madrid, Barcelona, Bay­ern Mu­nich and Paris Saint-Ger­main, fol­lowed by Liv­er­pool, with an­nu­al rev­enues rang­ing from €1.2 bil­lion to €831 mil­lion (US$1.4 bil­lion to US$957 mil­lion).

Foot­ball rev­enue comes from mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar broad­cast­ing rights, tick­et sales, mer­chan­dise and spon­sor­ships. There is no re­li­able num­ber for the glob­al rev­enue gen­er­at­ed from foot­ball.

The ac­count­ing firm De­loitte es­ti­mat­ed that the an­nu­al rev­enue gen­er­at­ed from Eu­ro­pean foot­ball is US$45 bil­lion. This is on par with the rev­enue gen­er­at­ed by video gam­ing and the mu­sic in­dus­try but above the movie in­dus­try’s US$35 bil­lion in gross tick­et sales in the­atres world­wide. And the biggest re­turns go to the biggest teams.

Tick­et prices vary de­pend­ing on the club play­ing or the venue. Cham­pi­ons League match tick­ets are typ­i­cal­ly more ex­pen­sive than nor­mal League tick­ets. Hence the com­pe­ti­tion to qual­i­fy for the Cham­pi­ons League.

Group stage tick­ets of­ten cost 15 to 30 per cent more than stan­dard league games. The gap widens sig­nif­i­cant­ly in the knock­out stages and fi­nals. The at­trac­tive­ness of qual­i­fy­ing and do­ing well is twofold: pres­tige and mon­ey.

Tick­et prices vary marked­ly.

Next sea­son (2026-27), Re­al Madrid tick­ets at the Bern­abéu Sta­di­um will range from €275 to € 325 (US$315 to US$375) for starters. The bet­ter seats cost more, and VIP tick­ets will cost much more. Match­es against ri­vals like Atleti­co Madrid or Barcelona can see re­sale prices soar to thou­sands.

The same is true in Eng­land. Tick­et prices for the Man­ches­ter City Vs Man­ches­ter Unit­ed game on March 20, 2027 range from a low of £224 to £3000 (US$303 to US$4,041). Buy­ing tick­ets from re­sellers is more ex­pen­sive; tick­et prices are marked up by a com­mis­sion which goes to the re­seller. Coven­try City’s tick­et prices are much less than Man­ches­ter City, Man­ches­ter Unit­ed, Ar­se­nal and Chelsea.  

Seat­ing ca­pac­i­ty varies. Re­al Madrid’s Bern­abeu seats 83,000 pa­trons, Man­ches­ter City’s Eti­had on­ly holds 61,400, and Bay­ern Mu­nich’s Al­lianz seats 75,000. Small­er clubs have more mod­est arrange­ments. Coven­try City’s home sta­di­um in Eng­land has an of­fi­cial all-seater ca­pac­i­ty of 32,609 spec­ta­tors. The big­ger the rep­u­ta­tion of the club, the big­ger the fan base and the high­er the rev­enues.

Ac­count­ing firm De­loitte cal­cu­lat­ed that the an­nu­al rev­enues of the top 20 clubs for the year 2024/25 amount­ed to €12.4 bil­lion (US$14.2 bil­lion). The suc­cess of the Eu­ro­pean teams has at­tract­ed bil­lion­aire in­vestors. Ar­se­nal (both the men and women’s club) is 100 per cent owned by the Amer­i­can Stan Kroenke. The Sau­di Pub­lic In­vest­ment Fund owns 85 per cent of New­cas­tle Unit­ed. Paris Saint-Ger­main (PSG) is ma­jor­i­ty-owned by Qatar Sports In­vest­ment, a sov­er­eign wealth fund.

This does not mean that all the top clubs are owned by bil­lion­aires. Re­al Madrid does not have a sin­gle own­er; it is a pri­vate­ly reg­is­tered, non-prof­it sports as­so­ci­a­tion owned col­lec­tive­ly by its mem­bers, known as so­cios. FC Barcelona is en­tire­ly fan-owned by its more than 140,000 mem­bers, who are al­so known as so­cios. FC Bay­ern Mu­nich is pri­mar­i­ly owned by its fans (75 per cent), while the re­main­ing 25 per cent is split equal­ly among Adi­das, Al­lianz, and Au­di.

Big club rev­enues mean big salaries for the best play­ers. What mat­ters in busi­ness is suc­cess, at­trac­tive foot­ball and skil­ful play­ers. The most suc­cess­ful clubs can pay more and there­fore can at­tract top tal­ent.

As a re­sult, stand­out per­form­ers from low­er-ranked teams tend to get poached by the lure of a big­ger pay­day and the op­por­tu­ni­ty for wider ex­po­sure. Play­ers have a fi­nite life and must max­imise their earn­ings while they can.

This ac­counts for the at­trac­tive­ness of Eu­ro­pean foot­ball leagues to play­ers from the glob­al south where economies are small­er and club rev­enues much low­er.

Tal­ent scouts trav­el the world look­ing for unique tal­ents. Mes­si was re­cruit­ed to the Barcelona acad­e­my at age 13; Lamine Ya­mal at just 7 years old. But these are pre­co­cious tal­ents.

Where does FI­FA fit in and how does FI­FA earn its rev­enue?