Developments in European stadium construction

UEFA has published the eighth Club Licensing Benchmarking Report.​ The report shows huge reductions in losses since the introduction of financial fair play, record stadium and capital investment by clubs, and club revenue increasing year on year.

Stadiums and stadium development

• Football accounts for 240 of the 365 major global stadium projects (outdoor and 5,000+) in the last decade.
• Turkey (18), Poland (14) and Russia (14) have undertaken the largest number of major new stadium projects in Europe since 2007.
• There has been a notable upward trend in European stadium building, 58 new or rebuilt club stadiums having been scheduled between 2013 and 2017, compared with 23 between 2008 and 2012.
• Clubs invested €996m in new fixed assets in 2015, mainly in stadium and training facilities and complexes, which compares favourably with the € 670m invested in the previous year. This contributed to the fastest growth (7 %) in balance sheet fixed asset value since detailed records started.

• Crowds of more than 170 million went to European league matches in 2015/16, with 55 million attending matches in England and Germany.
• There was a significant 2.6 million increase in European crowds last season, with 14 leagues achieving their best attendance figures in more than ten years.
• 29 clubs enjoyed at least 1 million monthly supporter visits to their official club websites in 2016, including 7 English, 5 German, 15 other European clubs and 2 clubs from outside Europe.

Club ownership and sponsorship

• Football club revenues have increased for 20 consecutive years, now reaching almost € 17bn for clubs in European top divisions.
• The top 15 European clubs have added a remarkable €1,514m in sponsorship and commercial revenues in the last six years (148 % increase) compared with the €453m added by the rest of Europe’s 700 or so top-division clubs (17 % increase).
• The 20 top-division English clubs together again reported more revenue than all 597 clubs combined from the 48 smallest UEFA member associations.
• There has been a significant reduction in the number of loss-making clubs in Europe since the introduction of financial fair play, in particular the worst excesses, with the number of clubs with a single-year loss of more than €45m falling from 11 clubs in financial year 2011 to four clubs in financial year 2015.
• In general, European clubs are increasingly operating on a financially sustainable basis, with aggregate losses slashed by 81 % since the full introduction of financial fair play from €1.7bn in 2011 to just over €300m in 2015.
• 44 clubs in major European leagues are now under foreign ownership, with owners of 18 different nationalities.
• 2016 was the most active year for foreign club takeovers, with ten new acquisitions completed by November, including eight new Chinese owners.
• Foreign ownership is still centred in England, where more than half of the clubs in the top two leagues now have foreign owners.
• Commercial naming rights are applied in 25 % of European club stadiums but are increasing and are most common in Germany then Denmark, where over half of stadiums have commercial naming rights deals.
• The top three kit manufacturers (adidas, Nike and Puma) supply just under half of European club teams in the major leagues.
• Shirt sponsorship by contrast sees a low level of concentration, with just 6 % of sponsors appearing on the shirts of more than one club.