BrazilReal Madrid bumps Manchester United from top of KPMG value table
Real Madrid has bumped Manchester United from the top of the European Football enterprise value table according to the latest data from professional services firm KPMG.
Global professional services firm KPMG has released its latest European Football leader-board for enterprise value (EV), with Real Madrid knocking off Manchester United after three years at the top. Prepared by the firm’s Football Benchmark team on data to the beginning of the year, the “Football Clubs’ Valuation: The European Elite 2019” report evaluates the worth of Europe’s 32 most prominent football clubs.
To assess the leading teams in Europe, KPMG looks into their latest publicly available financial statements (as such, the table does not take into account the business and sporting results for the 2018/19 season), and applies its own algorithm based on a ‘Revenue Multiple’ approach which considers five football-specific metrics: profitability, popularity, sporting potential, broadcasting rights and stadium ownership.
And after a relative period of stability, this year has seen a fair degree of movement at the pointy end of the table, with nine of the top ten teams changing positions – led by Real Madrid’s ten percent gain to an assessed worth of €3.22 billion to dispatch of Man U for the overall enterprise value crown. Manchester United meanwhile dropped in value to €3.20 billion, a decrease of €48 million from last year’s results.
Elsewhere in the top ten, Bayern Munich claimed the 3rd position ahead of Barcelona which slipped to the 4th from last year, while Chelsea and Liverpool made respective gains of 26 and 32 percent to crack the €2 billion-plus club for the first time and take 6th and 7th spot behind Manchester City, which held steady in 5th with its own 14 percent improvement. The rise of the Blues and the Reds pushed Arsenal down to 8th, with Tottenham jumping Juventus into 9th.
According to KPMG, Real Madrid can primarily attribute its success to the massive prize money it earned through three successive UEFA Champions League cups, as well due to improved profitability and a cumulative 29 percent operating revenue growth driven chiefly by increasing commercial revenues. Notably, this year’s UEFA finalists in Liverpool and Tottenham had already increased their value by over 30 percent during the prior year, behind only Inter Milan.
“For the third consecutive year, the overall EV of the 32 most prominent European football clubs has increased by 9 percent (35% over the past three years). This growth rate is in contrast with the overall trend of the major European Stock Exchanges, notably the STOXX Europe 50 Index1, showing a year-on-year decrease of -13%, and demonstrating the different pace at which the football industry is evolving,” said Andrea Sartori, KPMG’s Global Head of Sports.
Clubs from the ‘Big 5’ European football leagues (The English Premier League, La Liga of Spain, Italy’s Seria A, the German Bundesliga and France Ligue 1) took all but five of the 32 spots, with the Premier League being the most dominant overall, featuring nine clubs on the list which together accounted for 43 percent of the total aggregate value. The remaining spots were taken by Ajax and Benfica of Holland and Portugal, Turkish clubs Beşiktaş and Galatasaray, and Celtic, which entered the list for the first time.
