La Liga's outspoken president Javier Tebas has made no secret about his disdain for the English top flight.
"What I'm worried about is the Premier League," Tebas gasped, "and I've been worried for many years now."
The combative lawyer has castigated the Premier League as financially unstable, lamenting that it has been "converted into a competition where all clubs lose money". However, England's leading sides bring in an awful lot of cash as well.
In fact, according to Deloitte's 2023 Annual Review of Football Finance, Premier League clubs generated almost twice the revenue of their La Liga counterparts across the 2021/22 season.
Here's how the Premier League's gargantuan wealth compares to the rest of Europe's elite.
Top five European League clubs' revenue from 2021/22 season
Data via Deloitte
Based on accounts from the 2021/22 season, Premier League clubs brought in a total combined revenue of €6.4bn. More than half of this mega haul came from the league's eye-watering broadcasting agreements, totalling €3.5bn. Not only is this figure considerably bigger than the rest of Europe, it exceeds the broadcast deals of the Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1 combined.
The Premier League gets match-going fans to cough up more than any other elite division (€901m in matchday revenue) and attracts more eyeballs globally, boasting international media deals worth in the region of €1.6bn. For comparison, La Liga can command €897m from foreign markets while the Bundesliga - the most widely-attended division in Europe - only has overseas broadcast contracts worth around €230m.
Ligue 1 recorded the biggest revenue increase among Europe's top five leagues - thanks chiefly to commercial deals spearheaded by Marseille and Paris Saint-Germain - but still ranks as the smallest fish in this big pond.
Serie A was the only league that saw its revenue decrease compared to the 2020/21 season. The Italian top flight haemorrhaged broadcast revenue (24% decrease) due to a decreased international appeal. The apathy was reflected domestically, with just 47% of seats in all stadiums used throughout the campaign.
Deloitte predicts that the Premier League's revenue is only expected to grow following the signing of new broadcast agreements home and abroad ahead of the 2022/23 campaign. When the accounts for the 2022/23 season are released, the gap to La Liga could be as wide as €3.3bn.
Top five European League clubs' operating losses from 2021/22 season
Tebas may have been adamant that "there is no sustainability in the Premier League" in January but the numbers don't quite back up that claim. According again to Deloitte, the English top flight recorded an aggregate operational profitability, with the league's net revenue exceeding the total cost of wages and other operational expenses by €542m.
La Liga, by comparison, recorded an overall operating loss of €82m. This was largely due to significant losses posted by the division's duopoly of Real Madrid (€133m) and Barcelona (€53m).
However, Ligue 1 takes the wooden spoon for financial mismanagement. Recording an aggregate operational loss of more than half a billion (€599m), the French top flight hasn't posted an operating profit in any of the last 15 years. The economic landscape was deemed so dire that the league appointed an independent financial regulator to guard the accounts.
Top five European League clubs' average wages/revenue ratio from 2021/22 season
The ratio between wages and revenue serves as a rough marker for sustainability - it's never a good idea to divert all of the money coming into a club on salaries. Ligue 1, it seems, did not get the message.
For the fifth year on the spin, the French top flight has posted the highest wages/revenue ratio - clocking in at 87% in 2021/22. Worryingly, as many as five clubs recorded ratios in excess of 100% - i.e. they spent more than they made, never a recipe for financial success.
The Bundesliga is at the other end of the spectrum. Not once in the last decade has the division's average wages/revenue ratio crept above a parsimonious 59%. The German top tier is the best-run league in Europe but won't be able to compete with the Premier League unless it dramatically increases its international appeal.
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This article was originally published on 90min as How Premier League finances compare to rest of Europe’s top five leagues.
