By David Owen
January 7 – FIFA has announced details of how a $40 million (£25.9 million) pot it earmarked for clubs whose players took part in last year’s World Cup in South Africa is being distributed.
As predicted by insideworldfootball last August, a month after the tournament finished, Barcelona and Bayern Munich are receiving the biggest payouts – of $866,267 (£560,649) and $778,667 (£504,013) respectively.
Rules for calculating the payments were fiendishly complicated, depending not only on when each of the 736 players’ countries got knocked out, but also which clubs they represented and for how long since the 2008-09 season.
Nonetheless, insideworldfootball also correctly predicted that struggling Liverpool would receive “close to $700,000” (£453,126) – it is getting $695,600 (£450,278) – and that Chelsea ($762,667/£493,721) and Real Madrid ($678,133/£438,963) would complete the top five recipients.
FIFA said that a total of 400 clubs from 55 national associations were set to obtain a share of the benefits.
Its figures show that English clubs – primarily from the Premier League – will be receiving the biggest share, at $5.95 million (£3.85 million), followed by Germany ($4.74 million/£3.06 million) and Italy ($3.88 million/£2.51 million).
The Royal Spanish Football Federation is only fourth with $3.7 million (£2.39 million), even though the Spanish team captured its first World Cup with victory over the Netherlands in what was a disappointing final.
The FIFA figures also underline the decline in Brazilian club football, with the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) only 25th on the list, behind, for example, the Scottish FA (21st) and the North Korean FA (11th).
FIFA President Joseph Blatter said FIFA was “pleased that we can share the success of the 2010 FIFA World Cup with the clubs by providing them a share of the benefits of our flagship event, in particular to recognise their efforts in the development of young players”.
The size of the pot is being increased substantially to $70 million (£45.28 million) for the next World Cup in Brazil in 2014.
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