The release of Deloitte’s annual Football Money League has revealed that English Premier League clubs are being left eating the dust of the beautiful game’s two revenue-generating monsters, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. Real Madrid topped the standings for a third consecutive year, hauling in £975 million in revenue during the 2024/25 season – a sizable increase on the £910 million they trousered in 2023/24.
Their La Liga rivals, Barcelona, had a fine campaign when it comes to making money: they banked £819 million in 2024/25, which is a significant rise on the £662 million generated during the prior season. That improvement sees Barca climb from sixth to second in the annual rundown – leapfrogging Manchester City and Manchester United in the process. And Deloitte’s Football Money League suggests that English Premier League clubs lost some of their financial muscle in 2024/25…
Who Is the Richest Football Club in 2026?
It was another record-breaking year for football’s finances. The top 20 clubs on the money list created more than £10.4 billion in revenue between them during the last completed season – a new record. All told, football revenues grew by a considerable 11% in that 2024/25 campaign.
Real Madrid
And Real Madrid also broke their own record. In 2023/24, they became the first football club to generate more than €1 billion in revenue. Well, the Galacticos smashed that out of the park in 2024/25, making more than €1.1 billion (£975 million) this time around.
Incredibly, Real Madrid generated £517 million in commercial partnerships and merchandise sales – that alone would have seen them rank tenth on the Deloitte list. When splitting the different revenue streams into individual components, commercial revenue – generally defined as sponsorships and other mutually beneficial deals penned by businesses and football clubs – breached the €5 billion (£4.36 billion) mark for the first time.
Football Club Revenue Compared
Elsewhere, broadcast revenue also increased to £4.1 billion, while matchday revenue (£2.1 billion) also hit record levels in 2024/25.
| Rank | Club | Revenue | 2025 Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Real Madrid | £975m | 1 |
| 2 | Barcelona | £819m | 6 |
| 3 | Bayern | £723m | 5 |
| 4 | PSG | £703m | 3 |
| 5 | Liverpool | £702m | 8 |
| 6 | Man City | £697m | 2 |
| 7 | Arsenal | £690m | 7 |
| 8 | Man Utd | £666m | 4 |
| 9 | Tottenham | £565m | 9 |
| 10 | Chelsea | £491m | 10 |
While the general prognosis for football finances is very strong, Premier League clubs have been left to nurse their wounds – a number of them slipped down Deloitte’s money list in 2024/25. For the first time since 1997, when Deloitte first started compiling their annual money list, no EPL club features in the top four.
Liverpool
Liverpool were the only Premier League side to improve their standing on the Football Money List – this is the first time that they’ve been the top English team in the rankings. As well as winning the Premier League title and participating in the expanded Champions League, the Reds had unlikely sources like Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa and Bruce Springsteen to thank – they each played money-spinning shows at Anfield during the course of 2023/24.
The assistant director of Deloitte Sport, Marco D’Elia, commented:
Liverpool’s strong performance was driven by on-pitch performance, Champions League revenues and a 7% increase in their commercial revenues. That is driven by more focus on non-matchday events at Anfield, including concerts by Taylor Swift and corporate events.
Elsewhere, Manchester City and Manchester United both fell down the pecking order and Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea – despite winning the Club World Cup – remained anchored in the same spot as 2023/24. It’s worth remembering that the Deloitte Football Money League is a ranking of revenue generated and not profitability. As we know, clubs are able to bank huge sums from commercial deals, but often considerable amounts are flowing out of their accounts in transfer fees, player salaries, agent commissions and the like.
Although some accounts have yet to be published for 2024/25, it’s likely that at least half of the teams mentioned in the top ten list above will actually post a pre-tax loss for the accounting period. And some of the impressive revenues are one-off hits that can’t be replicated – at Barcelona’s newly-reopened Nou Camp home stadium, for example, a whopping £60 million in revenue was generated by selling 30-year Personal Seat Licences to private investors.
Women’s Football in Rude Health
Better news is in store for Women’s Super League (WSL) clubs, who continue to thrive in the revenue-generation stakes. All told, the top 15 women’s clubs examined by Deloitte combined for a total revenue of €158 million (£137 million) in 2024/25 – the first time that they had crossed that particular milestone.
That was a year-on-year growth of a whopping 35%, with seven WSL clubs forming the top ten of the Women’s Football Money List.
- #1 – Arsenal (£21.5 million)
- #2 – Chelsea (£21.3 million)
- #3 – Barcelona (£18.5 million)
- #4 – Manchester City (£10.8 million)
- #5 – Manchester United (£10.6 million)
- #6 – Real Madrid (£10.4 million)
- #7 – Aston Villa (£6.7 million)
- #8 – Liverpool (£6.2 million)
- #9 – Bayern Munich (£6.1 million)
- #10 – Tottenham (£4.4 million)
Never before had a women’s club passed the £20 million mark for revenue in a season, but Arsenal and Chelsea both did during the 2024/25 campaign. The Gunners led the way in the standings for the first time – aided, no doubt, by winning their maiden Champions League title in May.
As mentioned, revenue generation does not always equal profitability or financial viability, so Deloitte’s findings should be kept in context. Another caveat to all this, meanwhile, is that Deloitte were unable to collect data for some of the leading women’s teams in the United States, which remains the global powerhouse, as well as in other nations where the sport thrives, such as Australia and Sweden.
If they had been able to, maybe Angel City FC would have come out on top. The Los Angeles based outfit was acquired by Disney chief Bob Iger in 2024, who paid $250 million – around £185 million – for the privilege. And that filed Angel City as the most valuable women’s sports team on the planet.
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