Since we have had an on-going debate about the 'biggest' clubs. One of the things I mentioned was that the size of a club is inexorably linked to their finances. Keep in mind that these figures are of income. Income includes gate receipts, paraphenelia sales, player transfers and TV deals. Unfortunately none of the eredivisie teams made it on the list, so we can't settle that part. Nevertheless there are some surprises (check #12,14,16 and 18) After some digging here are the top 20 (2003 income in euros in brackets): 1. Manchester United (251.4m) 2. Juventus (218.3m) 3. AC Milan (200.2m) 4. Real Madrid (192.6m) 5. Bayern Munich (162.7m) 6. Internazionale Milan (162.4m) 7. Arsenal (149.6m) 8. Liverpool (149.4m) 9. Newcastle United (138.9m) 10. Chelsea (133.8m) 11. AS Roma (132.4m) 12. Borussia Dortmund (124m) 13. Barcelona (123.4m) 14. Schalke 04 (118.6m) 15. Tottenham Hotspur (95.6m) 16. Leeds United (92m) 17. SS Lazio (88.9m) 18. Celtic (87m) 19. Olympique Lyonnais (84.3m) 20. Valencia (80.5m) Source: http://money.msn.co.uk/investing/Insight/SpecialFeatures/TipsGuides/Richestfootballclubs/default.asp
this list is misleading, it shows income, not profit. without certainty and off the top of my head; lazio, roma, barcelona, inter, milan, and juventus all have finances in the red. real madrid was too until the government helped them out with a couple of hundred million.
Schalke and Dortmund (also in serious financial trouble) aren't really surprising if you consider stadium size 60-80k and always filled.
I doubt thats got much to do with it. Clubs usually dont get a big chunk of their profit out of the ticketsales, but out of merchandising and big TV/sponsorship deals.
Chelsea should not be on the list. They may have the richest owner but they are not one of the richest clubs. If the Russian leaves, then Chelsea don't have the money to pay the wages, and that means goodbye Chelsea.
My comment was following on from the other thread - big stadia always filled = rabid local Ruhr valley support = big revenue, despite the lack of an international following and good runs in European competitions. See: Newcastle. I agree with your point that the majority of gross income generally doesn't come from gate receipts per se; however, Arsenal are moving to Ashburton Grove for the express reason of sizeably increasing revenue from club level seats and corporate boxes to compete financially with ManU and Spartak London.