AC Milan received the most money from last season's Champions
League, earning just under 40 million euros on the way to winning
European soccer's top club competition for the seventh time, UEFA
said on Tuesday.
Milan, which avenged its defeat in the 2005 final to Liverpool
by winning 2-1 in this year's final in Athens in May, collected
39.59 million euros ($54.04 million), followed by semifinalists
Chelsea (34.66 million euros) and Liverpool (32.22 million
euros).
The figures were issued on Tuesday, by UEFA, European soccer's
governing body who run the competition.
Sevilla, of Spain, which won the UEFA Cup for the second
successive season, picked up 6.25 million euros after beating
Espanyol on penalties in the final in Glasgow. Espanyol's
prize-money totalled 5.31 million euros.
The figures released do not include income from match-day
tickets.
Last season was the first in a new three-year cycle for the
marketing of European soccer's top club competitions.
The formula for dividing up the revenues from both competitions
along with the financial gap between the elite Champions League and
the less prestigious UEFA Cup has been a bitter bone of contention
between UEFA, national associations, leagues and clubs.
Half of the revenues were distributed by awarding fixed sums to
clubs at every stage of the competitions, while the other 50
percent was based on the market value of each national market.
The amounts of money handed out for reaching various stages of
the competitions ranged from 2.0 million euros for every club who
qualified in the Champions League up to Milan's additional earnings
of 7.0 million euros for winning the final.
Liverpool received 4.0 million euros as Champions League
runners-up.
In the UEFA Cup, each team received 70,000 euros by way of
qualification with Sevilla receiving 2.5 million euros for winning
the final and Espanyol earning 1.5 million as beaten finalists.
What is clear is that clubs in the Champions League make far
more money in that competition even if they are far less successful
than clubs in the UEFA Cup.
For example, UEFA's figures show that Levski Sofia of Bulgaria,
who lost all their six group stage matches in the Champions League
and were eliminated, still made 1.0 million euros ($1.37 million)
more than Tottenham Hotspur ($5.85 million) who won their first
eight successive matches in the UEFA Cup before going out at the
quarterfinal stage to Sevilla.
(China Daily via Agencies July 12, 2007)