Liverpool’s Champions League Earnings Dwarf Manchester United

Liverpool were the competition’s third-highest earners as a trip to the final proved financially lucrative.

As an also-ran in the big money sweepstakes of modern football, Liverpool supporters have grown accustomed to their club getting out-punched by the likes of Manchester City, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Barcelona and Manchester United in the race to secure the best talent.

Even with the Reds securing coveted signatures in record-smashing deals for the likes Virgil Van Dijk and Alisson Becker, many fans assumed the outlays were funded by the monster £142m sale of Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona.

However, as recently-released figures from UEFA show, the key to the chicken-egg challenge of achieving sustained financial punching power is in fact solid domestic finishes and consistent deep runs in football’s cash cow, the Champions League. £1.4bn was disbursed by the competition’s governing body, UEFA for last season’s campaign with Liverpool’s impressive march to the final netting the third-highest haul with £71.8m.

A fourth-place finish in the 2016/17 Premier League season meant that the Reds netted a smaller percentage of the English market pool with £25.8m, but made up for it with the club’s deepest run in the competition in a decade.

Only winners, Real Madrid (£78.5m) and semi-finalists, Roma (£74.3) earned more, with the Italian club earning a larger share of the Serie A pool due to a 2016/17 second-place domestic finish. Liverpool nevertheless topped the earnings amongst the other English clubs, as 2016/17 Premier League champions Chelsea drew £35.9m of their £57.8m haul from the market pool, while Manchester City’s quarterfinal exit to the Redmen earned them £56.6m. Tottenham took in £54.4m while Manchester United’s ignominious exit the round-of-16 helped them bring up the rear with £35.8m, less than half of Liverpool’s earnings.

With the re-tooled Reds gearing up for the next step in their domestic and European ambitions, Liverpool look set to continue their residence among the game’s financial elite for years to come.

Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com