Man Utd drop to third in rich list

Manchester United have dropped to third place behind Real Madrid and Barcelona in the 'rich list' of European clubs.

The Deloitte Football Money League sees the two Spanish clubs secure the top spots but mainly due to the continuing decline of the pound against the euro.

The overwhelming dominance of Real Madrid and Barcelona in Spain is shown by the fact that no other La Liga side occupy a top 20 place.

The two Spanish giants have one significant advantage in revenue terms in that they negotiate their own individual television rights while the Premier League have a collective deal which is shared much more equally among all 20 clubs.

Dan Jones, partner in the sports business group at Deloitte, told Press Association Sport: "Chelsea's revenue has dropped because last season was a bit worse than usual on the pitch, they had frozen season ticket prices and there was not a lot going on in big new commercial developments.

"Arsenal have the advantage in matchday income with a new 60,000-seater stadium and they made the semi-finals of both the Champions League and the FA Cup.

"All the English clubs were impacted by the continuing depreciation of the pound against the euro and the scale of this is shown by the fact that if exchange rates remained at their June 2007 level, United would be top of the money league table."

Positions (last year's position in brackets):

1 (1) Real Madrid £341.9million

2 (3) Barcelona £311.7m

3 (2) Man Utd £278.5m

4 (4) Bayern Munich £246.6m

5 (6) Arsenal £224.0m

6 (5) Chelsea £206.4m

7 (8) Liverpool £184.8m

8 (11) Juventus £173.1m

9 (10) Internazionale £167.4m

10 (7) AC Milan £167.4m

 
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