September 10 – European football’s top-division clubs made a profit for the first time on record in 2017 totalling €600 million as the effects of financial fair play kicked in.
UEFA research involving 711 clubs’ financial accounts ending in 2017 showed they collectively turned around a 300-million euro loss from the previous year.
Revenue for the 2017 financial year was a record €20.1 billion, an increase of €1.6 billion.
UEFA said 27 of 54 top-tier divisions in its member countries were profitable, up from eight in 2011 when UEFA began monitoring accounts of all clubs qualifying to enter the Champions League and Europa League.
“Thanks to Financial Fair Play, European football is healthier than ever before,” UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin said in a statement, conveniently sidestepping the fact that it was the brainchild of his predecessor Michel Platini to stop clubs spending beyond their means and discouraging fat-cat owners from trying to buy success and distorting the transfer market.
“Financial Fair Play has provided the platform for clubs to control their costs and pay their debts. This success, this new stability is a result of the work done by UEFA and its member associations in introducing licensing systems including cost control mechanisms which have yielded much improved financial discipline.”
UEFA noted that 18 of 20 English Premier League clubs were profitable for their financial year ending June 2017, with the highest operating profits on record of €1.19 billion and the biggest joint revenue of €5.34 billion, an increase of €452 million from the year before.
Serie A clubs made a net profit of 3.7%, mainly due to a swing from transfer losses to profits, ending a run of seven years of losses.
UEFA tightened the rules this year under which clubs who spend more than around €100 million in a single transfer window are automatically assessed. AC Milan were thrown out of this season’s Europa League for falling foul of the rules but successfully appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
“The new regulations will further allow UEFA to act more swiftly and anticipate problems before they become too big,” said Ceferin. “UEFA will now immediately react and proactively assess the clubs’ ability to meet the rules in the future.”
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