Real Madrid topped the ‘rich list’ for their fifth straight year and are also the first global sports team to see annual revenues top 400million euros (£357m).
Barcelona managed to overtage United despite a 9% rise in income at Old Trafford. The Main reason for this is the continuing decline of the pound against the euro.
Arsenal managed to leapfrog Chelsea on the list as the Gunners recorded a 7% rise in revenue to £224million, while the Blues suffered a 3% fall in revenue to £206million.
Dan Jones, partner in the sports business group at Deloitte, said: “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 match day 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.”
Juventus were the top Italian team on the list, as the Old Lady improved their position from 11th to 8th after recording revenues of £173.1million.
Bundesliga side Werder Bremen and Premier League side Manchester City are new on the top 20 list.
Deloitte Football Money League – 2008-09 revenue (last year’s position in brackets):
1 (1) Real Madrid £341.9 million
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) Inter Milan £167.4m
10 (7) AC Milan £167.4m
11 (15) Hamburg £124.9m
12 (9) Roma £124.7m
13 (12) Lyon £118.9m
14 (16) Marseille £113.5m
15 (14) Tottenham £113.0m
16 (13) Schalke £106.0m
17 (n/a) Werder Bremen £97.7m
18 (20) B Dortmund £88.1m
19 (n/a) Man City £87.0m
20 (17) Newcastle £86.0m
Source: Deloitte Football Money League 2010
N.B. Revenue excludes player transfer fees, value added tax and other sales related taxes.
