The international football market ended the season with a serious drop in revenue

The coronavirus epidemic affected all players in European football: European Union (UEFA) revenues fell by 21 per cent to € 3 billion due to the postponement of the 2020 European Championships and refunds to UEFA's broadcasting and trading partners, according to the audit and consultancy. in the report of its sports consulting business.

During the post-epidemic closures, UEFA worked closely with associations, leagues and clubs to address the postponement and return of matches and to alleviate the associated financial burden. He paid advances to associations and maintained payments to clubs, and repayments to intermediary and trading partners were postponed to subsequent seasons. The International Federation (FIFA) also responded quickly, establishing the Covid-19 relief plan and making $ 1.5 billion available to national federations. Of that amount, $ 340 million was already released in 2020, more than half of which was subsidies.

Although the epidemic affected all clubs, regardless of size, and in relative terms had the greatest impact on the clubs most dependent on match revenues, in absolute terms, the five largest European leagues had the most severe direct impact.

"In the financial year 2019-20, the combined revenues of the five major leagues fell by 11 per cent to € 15.1 billion, which, however, still represents a record 60 per cent share of the European football market. The aftermath of the epidemic in the summer of 2020 In the five major leagues, gross transfer costs fell by about 40 per cent, from € 5.5 billion to € 3.4 billion, so the amount distributed among other European leagues also fell, director of its business unit.

UEFA has decided to significantly change the structure of the series from 2024-25. The redesigned system for major tournaments and the increase in the number of matches are expected by UEFA to mean a media-to-cycle increase in media and commercial revenues that increased by about 30 percent between the 2018-19 and 2020-21 seasons.

Each league tried to deal with the situation caused by the pandemic differently.

"Divergent decisions by the leagues - resumption of matches, rebates to broadcasters, negotiations with trading partners and financial measures to support clubs and leagues - have led to varying degrees of reduced financial results for the leagues. revenue fell by 11 per cent to € 15.1 billion in 2019-20, and the total value of wage costs paid to players did not change significantly, resulting in a dramatic effect in the short term: it has reached its highest level since the early 2000s, "said Péter Pádár, head of the sports consulting business.

(Source: Source: sportrajongo.hu, mti / Photo: pixabay)