The Deloitte Football Money League 2020 was published on Tuesday 14 January 2020.
The football finance experts revealing their latest yearly overview of which clubs in the World generate the most money.
The report covered the 2018/19 season, with Deloitte as usual given access to the figures from every(***) club, despite some clubs not having published their accounts as yet for that campaign.
This is how the Deloitte Football Money League 2020 looked, the top 20 and then positions 21-30.
The Deloitte Football Money League 2020 – Top 20 (totals in euros):
Position 21-30 in the top 30 revenue generating clubs in the Deloitte Football Money League 2020 rich list…(totals in euros):
With Mike Ashley continuing to show zero ambition on or off the pitch at Newcastle United, nobody expected to see NUFC heading towards the upper echelons of the Deloitte list BUT to disappear from the top 20 AND top 30 was bizarre.
In the Deloitte 2019 report, covering the 2017/18 season, Newcastle United had featured in 19th spot, NUFC listed as generating 201.5m euros of revenue. So how could they have fallen out of the picture completely?
When noting Newcastle United’s absence from the Deloitte Football Money League 2020 report, we (at The Mag) got in touch with Deloitte direct, with the people who prepared the report. Asking whether it was a mistake and Newcastle had simply been overlooked, or it was a case of NUFC had indeed seen falling revenues that took them outside the top 30.
Deloitte replied to The Mag on that Tuesday afternoon and explained that the Newcastle United absence wasn’t due to either of these potential explanations. Instead, Newcastle United hadn’t supplied the figures when asked, ahead of the NUFC 2018/19 accounts being published.
Moving up to the current day and Deloitte have published their Annual Review of Football Finance 2020.
On Friday 29 May 2020 the Newcastle United 2018/19 accounts were at last made public (the last Premier League club to do so) and so now Deloitte could take into consideration the NUFC figures when compiling this new 2020 review, which reflects on last season’s finances in football.
Included in this new review, Deloitte have produced a table showing the 2018/19 turnover (revenues) for each Premier League club, as well as their wage bill, plus underneath what percentage of turnover went on wages:
So the 2020 Deloitte rich list of highest turnovers for the 2018/19 season sees Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal, West Ham, Everton and Leicester, all above Newcastle, the Magpies dropping to tenth highest in the Premier League. However, the 2021 Deloitte list (for the current 2019/20 season) will surely see NUFC drop below Wolves as well. Newcastle dropping to 11th due to a combination of Ashley’s lack of ambition and the ambition shown by Wolves – who will have significant extra revenue from their Europa League campaign.
Interesting to look also at those wage bills above, if you take out the relegated clubs, only Wolves (£92m), Watford (£84m) and Burnley (£87m) had lower wage bills than NUFC’s £97m last season.
Looking at the Deloitte 2020 football rich list (above) released in January, you will see Leicester City were 22nd highest overall, their turnover was 200.0m euros, converted from £178.4m.
Using the same conversion rate, that means Newcastle’s 2018/19 revenues of £176.4m would equate to 197.8m euros.
Meaning that if Mike Ashley had provided the figures to Deloitte, January’s 2020 football rich list would have seen Newcastle in 24th spot on 197.8m euros, just ahead of Benfica on 197.6m euros. Falling five places (19th to 24th) compared to the 2019 Deloitte report for the 2017/18 season.
If there is no Newcastle United takeover and Mike Ashley remains in control, NUFC will continue to fall ever further down the list, completely reliant on TV revenues.
