New UEFA benchmarking report

A new UEFA benchmarking report focusing on the 237 clubs competing in this season's UEFA club competitions has been launched. The report, entitled 'Licensed to thrill', is the first benchmarking publication to concentrate in detail on the clubs participating in UEFA competitions, and is based on audited financial figures submitted by clubs to UEFA as well as on data from UEFA's competition and stadium databases.

The inclusion of a series of top 25 club rankings for numerous measures including average domestic attendance, the transfer cost of squads, the value of club fixed assets, club revenues and net earnings from transfer activity, represents a significant increase in transparency of clubs' off-pitch performance, and is in line with the stated financial fair play (FFP) objective of increasing club football transparency.

UEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino highlighted the headline figures from the report recently in Monaco and Dubrovnik, in particular the €600m decrease in top division aggregate club losses – the first time on record that club revenue growth has exceeded wage cost growth – and a significant 70% reduction in clubs' overdue payable debts. As Mr Infantino stated in Monaco, these figures underline the positive effect that financial fair play is already having on clubs.

The 52-page report contains a wealth of information on European club finances beyond those headline figures. The first section of the report features a detailed ten-year review of club performance in UEFA competitions and emphasises the broad participation of clubs and relative success of different countries' clubs. For example, Spanish and English sides have been the most consistently successful, with a 70% success rate in reaching at least the last 16 of the UEFA Champions League or UEFA Europa League, while teams from 22 different UEFA member associations have reached this stage of the competition(s) during the decade.

Memories are short in football, and this will probably be underscored if one tries to list the 19 different clubs that have represented England and Spain in UEFA competitions during this ten-year period.

In fact, a total of 583 sides have participated in UEFA club competition football over the past decade, and the PDF version of the report provides added interactivity – for example, allowing readers to hover over the club logo of each of these teams and see pop-up boxes that show a complete record of every round that each club has participated in during this decade.

As well as revealing the unique depth of European football, the report also spotlights the healthy turnover of clubs in the competitions, with 26 clubs (listed in the report) participating for the first time in a decade, while 21 of these clubs are playing in Europe for the first time.

Elsewhere, the report shows the financial performance of the most recent fully completed financial year (ending 2012), which will form the basis for the first year of financial figures to be examined under the much anticipated break-even assessment of FFP. According to the report, there were 31 clubs in Europe with revenues of €100m+ in the past financial year, of which 24 are competing in this year's UEFA competitions, with Real Madrid CF topping the revenue table. These 237 sides generated €8.1bn in revenue in the year ending 2012, and on average domestic television income contributed 25% of total revenue, with sponsorship at 24% and gate receipts at 20%.

The 237 clubs on average spent 60% of their revenue on wages, 79% of which went to players and 21% to technical and administrative staff. The report also evidences the redistributive effect of the transfer system, with Lithuanian, Belgian, Icelandic, Polish and Serbian clubs reporting 20%+ net transfer earnings as a percentage of revenue.

UEFA has been greatly encouraged by the feedback received from all stakeholders to the previous annual benchmarking reports and hopes that this new slim-line interim report will further increase the understanding of club football in Europe.