The value of football

We're used to think to Manchester United, Real Madrid and PSG as rich clubs, with massive incomes and huge financial possibilities. In financial terms, all this comes to what is defined as “brand”. But which variables are part of it? According to Brand Finance, an English financial consultation company, “the trademark and all the intellectual property associated to it, included the iconography”. In football, then, this concept could be very extended, being a “game” which makes a strength out of the collective consciousness.

Brand Finance has then tried to calculate how really the football brands are worth, drawing up a chart of the best 50. The calculation is based on Royalty Relief method, which measures how much it should be paid to get the brand imagine’s concession, including future and actualized associated financial flows. At each brand is associated with a rating, similar to Standard and Pool’s ones.

Who’s then on the top of this classification? First positions are quite expected, with Manchester United on top, with more than 1,1 billions of generated value, a hugeness if you consider that is the second year in a row with this value. A huge step ahead has been done, especially about the real value, by Real Madrid. From this result, you can deduce some important considerations: to win the Champions League it’s huge in terms of brand value, as is the participation to the Club World Cup, especially for the Asian markets, in which Manchester United is the first in the classification.

Another aspect to consider, as noted by the Kicks on the Pitch magazine, it the reason behind some clubs’ huge amount of money available for the transfer windows. Looking at this classification, in fact, makes much easier to understand how United was able to pay 100M for Paul Pogba. The financial success in not always transformed into sports success. There are clubs like Swansea, Hamburg, Southampton and even Newcastle (right now in the Championship) which are way ahead clubs that play the Champions League and are on the top of their leagues. 

And the Italian clubs? The first, stable, is Juventus, which places itself in the eleventh position, way ahead of Inter, Milan and Roma, while Napoli has lost more than 10 positions. The incomes are anyway very reduced than Premier and Liga’s ones, another demonstration of Serie A’s difficulties.