Money League: Bayern 4th and closing fast!

Club Wealth

1. Real Madrid €365.8m
2. Man­ches­ter United €324.8m
3. Barcelona €308.8m
4. Bay­ern Munich €295.3m
5. Chelsea €268.9m
6. Arse­nal €264.4m
7. Liv­er­pool €210.9m
8. AC Milan €209.5m
9. AS Roma €175.4m
10. Inter Milan €172.9m
11. Juven­tus €167.5m
12. Olympique Lyon €155.7m
13. Schalke 04 €148.4m
14. Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur €145m
15. Ham­burg SV €127.9m
16. Olympique Mar­seille €126.8m
17. New­cas­tle United €125.6m
18. VfB Stuttgart €111.5m
19. Fener­bahçe €111.3m
20. Man­ches­ter City €104m

Deloitte’s Foot­ball Money League for 2007/8 was released and there are four Ger­man teams on the list again this year. While Werder Bre­men dropped out of the top 20, Stuttgart replaced them in 18th. Among the other teams are HSV at 15th, Schalke at 13th and FC Bay­ern at 4th.

Bayern’s climb is inter­est­ing as they have sur­passed Chelsea and Arse­nal and now only sit behind Real Madrid, Man­ches­ter United and Barcelona. What makes the climb most pleas­ant is that Arse­nal, much like the Bavar­ian club has a new sta­dium; how­ever, even with a com­pa­ra­ble new infra­struc­ture to aid rev­enues, Bay­ern have sur­passed the Lon­don club with cheaper tick­et­ing dur­ing a year when they did not have Champion’s League rev­enue. With the return to Cham­pi­ons League this year, we may well see Munich sur­pass Barcelona (unless they deservedly win the UCL) and pos­si­bly United.

The sta­dium infra­struc­ture set in place for the World Cup has seen an increase of two teams in Deloitte’s League for the Bun­desliga. And there are yet gains to be made. For instance, Borus­sia Dort­mund, one of the giants of the game, are emerg­ing from a decade of finan­cial trou­ble and should, and most likely will, join this table in the near future, see­ing as they have one of the largest sta­di­ums in Europe. Mean­while Koln only returned to the top flight this year and with the beau­ti­ful RheinEn­ergi­eS­ta­dion, they are only a top 3 fin­ish away from join­ing this list. And who know what a Cham­pi­onship could do for Hertha Berlin.

Stuttgart, it should be noted, joined this table despite not hav­ing ren­o­vated for 2006. The ren­o­va­tion that is expected to fin­ish in 2011 could see Stuttgart jump even higher on this list, although miss­ing out on this year’s UCL might hurt them next year.

Any ideas on who else might be poised to join, please com­ment. I would love to hear your opin­ion. Also, if expen­di­ture to rev­enue were fac­tored, would all 16 Bun­desliga sides make the list?

Tagged as: Deloitte Money League