UEFA Champions League: The design of the Champions League perpetuates the inequities of the game in Europe, argues Emmet Malone.
Like our feathered friends, Europe's leading clubs have had to make do with slim pickings through the winter, but the return of the Champions League will provide the likes of Manchester United, Real Madrid and Milan with a chance to gorge themselves again on a cash-rich diet of prize and TV rights money.
Since the G12 group of clubs was formed more than a decade ago and pressure began to mount on UEFA to generate more funds for the elite, the European body's guiding principle has been "let the rich get richer". The upshot? The Champions League: a highly effective system of channelling significant revenue from the many to the few.
The competition was always intended to provide additional paydays for established giants, but recent changes to the way UEFA distributes the money generated from broadcast rights sold across Europe and beyond ensures that even when a club from the Continent's second tier, like Porto, upstage their wealthier rivals by winning the title they still take home less of the booty.
The Portuguese side reaped €20 million from their success last year, €10 million less than beaten semi-finalists Chelsea, whose superior earnings from other aspects of reaching the last four - gate receipts from six home games, merchandising and performance bonuses from sponsors - would have significantly increased the difference between the club's respective profits.
The English clubs to reach the group stages last season, Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea, were, in fact, the biggest earners from the event. Their end-of-season cheques from UEFA alone amounted to some €85 million combined.
The Spanish, French and Italians all lagged a distance behind. The leading Serie A club, Milan, pocketing €18 million, less than two thirds of any of their English rivals.
This Champions League cash has provided one of the key foundations on which the turnovers of the leading English clubs have soared. Between 1992 and 2003 there was, according to the recent Sports Nexus Report, a 650 per cent growth in the amount of money passing through the top flight's bank accounts, with broadcasting rights, including those from European football, providing a major share of the growth.
In 1992, the then 22 clubs shared just €22 million between them, while a decade later the figure had soared to €787 million, a leap from 10 per cent of total turnover to 44 per cent. United's take from the Champions League had more than trebled from just short of €9 million in 1998.
It is the financial disparity between the clubs that has been most alarming, however, with 1994's leading club having spent four times on wages what that season's bottom club could manage. By 2003, the champions outspent the 20th-placed team by a factor of eight, while the top five sides had grown their share of total revenue from just over a quarter (not hugely disproportionate in a 22 team division) to fractionally short of half (in a 20 team one).
The process has continued over the past couple of seasons with Roman Abramovich's takeover of Chelsea, where income increased by a staggering 63 per cent last year alone and where lucrative new kit and shirt sponsorship deals are about to be kick in, proving to be last year's major factor.
Much smaller clubs will regard the figures with a mixture of envy and bemusement. In recent weeks Eircom League clubs have been struggling to meet the requirements of a licensing scheme, in some cases for the want of a few thousand euro, while even the comparatively wealthy Swiss league will be missing a club when it resumes this weekend after Servette Geneva, never relegated from the top flight in their 115-year history, went bankrupt with debts of €6.5 million.
That's just about what one of the teams involved in this week's games will pick up for a night's work on May 25th in Istanbul.
