By David Owen
February 5 – Top-flight European football clubs took less in gate money in 2011 than they did in 2008, according to UEFA.
This latest indication of how the stagnant or contracting economies of many European countries have impacted on the sport is contained in UEFA’s latest European Club Licensing Benchmarking Report, a detailed 100-page plus analysis of clubs across all 53 member associations.
This found that aggregate gate receipt revenues totalled €2.537 billion in the 2011 fiscal year, compared with €2.543 billion three years earlier.
Happily for the health of the European game, broadcasting and commercial revenues continued to surge over the five-year period covered by the report, manifesting compound average growth rates of 8.2% and 7.2% respectively.
This bright picture for broadcasting rights has worked to the advantage of clubs in the ‘Big Five’ European markets of England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France.
As the report points out, the top five each reported more than €500 million of broadcast revenue in 2011, while only one other market – Turkey – reported over €100 million of revenue from this source.
Despite UEFA’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) initiative, scores of European clubs continued to spend more than they earnt.
In two countries – Serbia and Bulgaria – top-flight clubs on average paid out more than their reported revenues in employee costs alone.
Indeed, UEFA identified 88 clubs in all with “clearly unsustainable” employee cost ratios in excess of 100 percent.
Overall, more top division European clubs were in the red than in profit, with 55% reporting net losses.
More than 250 clubs – 38% – reported negative equity – more liabilities than assets – in their balance-sheets in 2011.
The report may be accessed at: http://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/Tech/uefaorg/General/01/91/61/84/1916184_DOWNLOAD.pdf