From World Soccer:
It‘s official: Real Madrid have displaced Manchester United as the world's richest club, according to the results of our exclusive survey of club finances.
Madrid, with an annual income of e252million in the financial year to 2002, have a greater revenue than any other club.
Their income was e45m higher than that of Man United, second in our list. But only one other Spanish club, Barcelona, features in our top 20.
They are joined by a total of eight from England, five from Italy, three from Germany and two from Scotland. World Soccer's research team, led by football finance expert Simon Banks, used a wide variety of sources.
The full results, including details of clubs' wage bills, transfer spending and sponsorship deals, appear in the July 2003 edition of World Soccer, on sale tomorrow.
WORLD SOCCER RICH LIST 2003
(revenue 2001-02, £m/€em)
1 Real Madrid 180/252
2 Manchester United 148.1/207.3
3 Juventus 139.3/195
4 Bayern Munich 125.7/176
5 Milan 115.5/161.7
6 Chelsea 115 /161
7 Barcelona 105.7/148
8 Roma 102.7/143.8
9 Liverpool 99/138.6
10 Arsenal 91/127.4
11 Internazionale 89.8/125.7
12 Leeds 81.5/114.1
13 Lazio 80/112
14 Borussia Dortmund 73.1/102.4
15 Newcastle 70.9/99.3
16 Tottenham 65/91
17 Bayer Leverkusen 57.1/80
18 Celtic 56.9/79.6
19 Aston Villa 46.7/65.4
20 Rangers 44.8/62.7
Of course this doesn’t take into account the debts that a club has. see that Lazio are in 13th place but still haven’t paid us for Stam yet. And look at Leeds at number 12!
And this in today’s Sunday Times:
Last year Real sold 932,000 replica shirts, 300,000 more than United. The Spaniards know that signing Beckham would allow them to tap into the Far East market, at a time when the club is increasingly preoccupied with its global profile. Research by a company specialising in brand marketing also suggests that Beckham is a bargain at £30m. According to FutureBrand, almost 30% of the international fans of British football follow a team because of its star players. The link between Beckham and Manchester United is especially potent, all the more so in Asia, where the club has 16.6m fans, compared with 11m in the UK and Ireland.