Premier League's financial muscle clear as report identifies 30 most valuable clubs

The Premier League's financial dominance over their continental counterparts has been put into new focus by a report that says 10 English clubs are among the 30 most valuable in Europe.

La Liga giants Real Madrid and Barcelona sandwich Manchester United in the top three of the annual Football Benchmark Enterprise Value report but the Premier League ’s dominance is underlined by a combined value of €9.4bn compared to Spain as the next best on €5.4bn.

Football Benchmark asks whether the Premier League may already be a Super League and points towards its broadcasting revenue on top of resilience during the pandemic as key reasons for its ability to pull ahead of the other big UEFA leagues.

“While Premier League clubs enjoy advantages in terms of matchday revenues to some extent and even larger benefits from their greater commercial appeal stemming from many factors, including the brand’s global power, what really sets them apart are highly remunerative broadcasting agreements,” the report says.

“Unlike other Big 5 leagues that all agreed to discounted deals during their domestic TV rights negotiations, the Premier League successfully locked in their current domestic package without any value loss and increased their compensation from international broadcasting, surpassing income generated from national broadcasters for the first time.

“The health crisis also revealed the greater strength and resilience of the Premier League on the transfer market, as the volume of English first division clubs’ transactions did not significantly change compared to pre-COVID times.”

Despite a shambolic season that saw United finish in sixth place and Erik ten Hag arrive as the new manager, the Old Trafford club remain the most valuable