Liverpool are expected to become the first club to post a profit over £100m as Arsenal, once ridiculed for keeping all their cash in the bank, are behind United and City in seventh in terms of revenue.

European Super League money
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Liverpool’s run to the Champions League final last season, combined with the sale of Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona, is expected to see them become the first club to report a net profit above £100m according to Inside World Football.

The figures won’t be confirmed until accounts are filed with Companies House, something Liverpool are expected to do in March. With Stan Kroenke taking Arsenal fully private, we won’t get the same sort of details about the club.

Liverpool’s “turnover, which reached £364 million in 2016-17, could soar to more than £450 million, thanks to that Champions League money supplemented by smaller increases in matchday revenue, domestic media payments and perhaps commercial,” writes David Owen, showing the importance of Arsenal returning to the Champions League as soon as possible.

“UEFA has actually dropped a heavy hint that the Merseysiders have indeed broken the Foxes’ record [pre-tax £92.5m in 16/17],” he continues. “Hidden away in its latest European club benchmarking report is the following sentence: “UEFA Champions League prize money of €82m drove Leicester City FC to the highest net profit in history in FY2017 (€98m), beating the previous record of €78m set by Tottenham Hotspur FC in FY2014 (with Liverpool FC set to break that record again in FY2018).””

In a second piece, Owen details information from a new UEFA club benchmarking report that states:

  • The top 12 clubs’ share of overall sponsorship and commercial revenues has risen from 22% to 39% in a decade.
  • While those 12 clubs have added €1.6 billion in new sponsorship and commercial revenues, the other 700 European top-division clubs have added less than €1 billion.
  • The total domestic TV revenue of all 400 clubs outside the top 20 leagues (the report covers 54 leagues in all) is less than half of that of a single average Premier League club.
  • Only three non-English giants – Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus – received more TV money in 2017 than the 20thPremier League club.
  • Also in 2017, just 20 clubs generated 49% of all top-division gate receipts.
  • Oh and the three most expensive squads in 2017 – those assembled by the two big Manchester clubs and Real Madrid – cost 40-50% more than the fourth most expensive.