Just had an email from SwissRamble, whose blog I subscribe to, with his estimate of the CL revenue we'll have earned to date. It can only be an estimate as, while some of it is fixed for all clubs based on performance, much is based on the distribution from the 'market pool' and that depends on how far each club gets relative to its national fellow CL participants. So the fact that both united and Newcastle have gone out of the knock-out stage is great for us and Arsenal, as we get to share more of the available pot. If Arsenal were to go out in R16, and we were to get to the final and win it again, we'd have a bumper payday, probably in excess of the £113.9m we got for winning it last season.
He reckons we've already guaranteed ourselves around €95m/£82m (including his estimate of the market pool) while united are on €60m. These figures are only UEFA prize money and don't include any ticket or commercial revenue.
As things stand with club coefficients, we're the top club in the main 5-year coefficient table,
5-year Coefficients with 141 points, with Bayern second on 136, then Real Madrid on 123, PSG on 108 and Liverpool on 103. united are in 9th place with 92 and will probably drop about 10 places over the next two years. That would probably see them in Pot 3 if they qualify for the CL.
The history clubs forced through the concept of a 10-year coefficient a few years ago, thinking that would protect part of their revenue stream even if they won nothing for a few years. However that backfired, and we're now 4th in that table, behind Real Madrid, Bayern and Barcelona. If we win it this season then we'd probably overtake Barca, but we are now the top English club in the 10-year rankings. united will plunge down that table over the next couple of years, down to around 25-30th place probably.
From a UEFA point of view at least, Manchester most definitely is Blue.
