Deloitte Money League have listed Manchester City as the world’s richest club with their latest football financial year report.
The accounting firm has been running a football club money League since 1996 and for the second time ever, an English club topped the rankings.
Manchester City, owned by Sheikh Mansour and managed by City Football Group, have overtaken Barcelona from 2020 to become the richest club according to revenue generated in the 2020/21 season.
The Premier League champions posted an annual total revenue of £571.1million (€644.9million), just ahead of Real Madrid’s £537.7million to beat Barcelona, who are now fourth in the league, to the top spot.
It is a big leap from their sixth place finish on the money League from the 2019/20 season. They also became only the fourth club ever to finish first since the money league started over 25 years ago, with Manchester United, Real Madrid and Barcelona being the other clubs.
City’s revenues have grown from £12.7million to £571.1million in the time in which the Deloitte Money League has been running.
The other clubs that make up the top ten are Real Madrid in second, Bayern Munich in third, Barcelona in fourth, Manchester United in fifth, Paris Saint-Germain in sixth, Liverpool in seventh, Chelsea in eighth, Juventus in ninth and Tottenham Hotspur in tenth.
City, however, were greatly helped by the coronavirus pandemic the season before, as Real Madrid, Man United, Spurs and Liverpool lost money due to the effects of the pandemic.
Barcelona’s financial woes due to the mismanagement of the club’s funds as well as the coronavirus pandemic, also contributed to the Catalans losing their top spot and achieving their lowest ranking since 2014.
Only City, PSG and Juventus recorded an increase in income from the 2019/20 season.
The impact of the pandemic is such that Deloitte estimated that clubs in the Money League have missed out on well over €1.7billion of revenue over the past two seasons as a result of Covid-19.
Low matchday turnouts and reduction of fees from broadcasting rights saw a record £3.7 billion in losses across Europe’s top leagues.
Dan Jones, Head of the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, praised the Premier League for having more clubs in the top 10 than others while also expressing belief that he expects the gap between the Premier League and its European counterparts to grow even wider in the near future.
“Premier League broadcast rights values are set to pull further away from the other ‘big five’ European leagues from the 2022-23 season,” he said.
“With the rollover of existing domestic arrangements on the same terms and the total value of international rights reportedly set to increase by 30 percent and exceed the value of domestic rights for the first time.”
