The Financial Chasm in European Football Competitions
After Tottenham Hotspur beat Manchester United 1:0 to win the UEFA Europa League on May 21 and Chelsea defeated Real Betis 4:1 to lift the UEFA Conference League trophy this Wednesday, Saturday's UEFA Champions League final between Inter and Paris Saint-Germain will mark the climax and the end of the European football season.
It's quite telling that the Champions League final gets the Saturday prime time treatment, while the finals of the two other European cup competitions were played in mid-week. After all, the Champions League is UEFA's flagship competition and the closest thing we have to a European super league. And while winning a European trophy is always a great achievement, winning the Europa League is widely seen as another way to secure Champions League qualification for the next season, while the Conference League doesn't even have that as a consolation prize.
As our chart illustrates, it’s not just prestige that the Europa League and the Conference League are lacking compared to the Champions League. In financial terms, the UEFA’s second and third tier competitions are simply no match for what can safely be considered the world’s biggest club competition in football. A club that marches through the Conference League, winning every league phase game and going on to win the title would receive €18.6 million in prize money this season – the same amount that Champions League clubs receive for simply qualifying for the league phase. In total, the eventual Champions League winner could earn up to €110.8 million in prize money alone, more than three times what the Europa League champion can make and almost six times the maximum prize money achievable by the winner of the Conference League.