It is looking more and more like Arsenal will fail to make next seasons Champions League, unless a bizzarre collection of results turn up in the last few games of the season, as even Arsene Wenger admitted yesterday. “..The problem before [the north London derby] was that the clarity was if we won all our games, we had a good chance of being in the top four. Now, even winning the games doesn’t guarantee us that. It’s not in our hands. That’s all we have to achieve.”
So if we fail, as expected, let us look at how much it will cost Arsenal to drop out of the Champions League. Let us look at their earnings from this years competition, with the usual Round of 16 exit, etc. The Daily Mail did an indepth study of all the Premier League team’s earnings from the Champions League this season. Here is an excerpt….
The system for allocating Champions League funds is complicated, based on everything from progress through the tournament to the previous season’s league position.
That meant that Leicester began the season with 40 per cent of England’s allocated TV pool for the group stages, a whopping £22m, according to website Swiss Ramble. Arsenal, who finished second last season, banked a little over £16m, with Spurs taking just under £11m and Manchester City only £5.4m.
Leicester then received a further £17m in TV money for their progress to the last eight – with Arsenal and City each earning £13.6m for reaching the first knock-out round, and Tottenham getting £10m because they were knocked out in the group stages.
However, and this is where it gets complicated, while those values are dependent on how far the teams got in this season’s competition, they are not considered prize money – the increased money is simply given for playing more games.
Leicester banked a further £17m for their exploits on the pitch, again the most of any English team.
Each team that reached the group stage was awarded just under £11m for participation. Teams are then given a further £1.3m for every group win, and £400,000 for every group stage draw.
That means that Arsenal, who were unbeaten in the group stages, actually earned more than Leicester for the first part of this season, a little over £7m, with Leicester picking up £6m and Tottenham £3.5m. Manchester City earned £1.7m for getting through their play-off, and then a further £4.2m from the group, taking them up to a similar total to Leicester.
The three English teams to make it to the last 16 were each awarded a further £5m, with Leicester then bagging another £4.2m for getting to the quarter-final.
That means the Premier League champions took a total of £16.7m in prize money, ahead of Arsenal (£12.2m), City (£11m) and Spurs (£3.5m).
Combined with the TV money and participation awards that means Leicester banked a total of £66m, with Arsenal earning £53m, City £41m and Spurs only £35m.
So if Arsenal have lost a potential 50m in earnings, surely that will have a big effect on our transfer fund for the summer, but it also gives us an idea of how much Wenger has earned the club by being in the Top Four every year until now….
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