European football has crossed the €40bn (£34bn) revenue threshold for the first time, but Deloitte is cautioning that serious challenges lie ahead for the sport.
Aggregate revenues across European football grew 13 per cent year on year during the 2024-25 season, driven primarily by the expansion of the Champions League and Uefa’s other club competitions.
Clubs also received a financial boost from Fifa’s first 32-team Club World Cup, a competition that could expand further to 48 teams for its next edition in 2029.
Despite the record-breaking milestone, Deloitte’s Annual Review of Football Finance warns that revenue growth is set to slow and the current expansion model is not sustainable.
Tim Bridge, lead partner in Deloitte’s Sports Business Group, said: “The expansion of Uefa and Fifa competitions has delivered financial benefits across Europe’s ‘big five’ leagues, but football cannot rely on simply adding more content to deliver sustainable growth.”
Bridge added that “an increasingly saturated market may not be good for players or fans, particularly if it weakens the on-pitch spectacle,” warning that short-term gain risks undermining long-term prosperity.
He also pointed to growing competitive pressure, noting that “as US sports consider moves to the European market, and competition from other entertainment businesses intensifies, there are undoubtedly challenges ahead.”
The Premier League alone accounted for around a fifth of all European football revenue, generating €8bn (£6.8bn), a figure projected to rise further for the 2025-26 season.
England’s traditional Big Six — Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur — generated 73 per cent of the league’s total £2.4bn commercial revenue, underlining the concentration of financial power.
Despite Premier League revenues rising eight per cent, pre-tax losses surged 600 per cent to £948m in 2024-25, driven by transfer spending and reduced returns from one-off asset sales, while collective net debt edged up slightly to £3.6bn.
The financial picture outside the top flight is considerably bleaker, with Championship revenues falling two per cent to £942m in 2024-25, the first year-on-year decline since the Covid pandemic.
Aggregate wage costs in the Championship rose to a record £903m, equivalent to an alarming 96 per cent of total revenues, with pre-tax losses increasing 12 per cent to £355m.
Bridge warned that “external funding is now critical to liquidity in the vast majority of cases” across all three English Football League divisions, pointing to a worsening and continuing financial trend.
Women’s Super League revenues grew 39 per cent to £90m in its first season operating independently from the Football Association, representing an encouraging trajectory for the women’s game.
However, competitiveness concerns persist, with the top four WSL clubs — Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, and Manchester United — increasing their share of total revenue from 66 to 71 per cent.
Jennifer Haskel, knowledge and insight lead in the Deloitte Sports Business Group, said: “There are countless signs of rising marketability in the women’s game, but this progress is uneven, with many clubs struggling to keep pace while the top tier teams widen the gap.”