European football clubs are forecast to miss out on 8.7 billion euros ($10.6 billion, Sh1.1 trillion) in revenue as they struggle to cope with the devastating financial fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, a Uefa report said Thursday.
The annual European Club Footballing Landscape study says the current projection of lost revenues in the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 financial years is 7.2 billion euros for top-tier clubs and 1.5 billion for lower-tier outfits.
In the foreword, Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin said: “In last year’s report, I said that European football was strong, united, resilient and ready for new challenges.
“But no one could have predicted that we would have to face the biggest challenge to football, sport and society in modern times.”
National leagues and Uefa’s club competitions, the Champions League and Europa League, have largely been played out behind closed doors since the pandemic hit Europe in early 2020.
“Every level and every corner of professional football has been hit hard,” says the report from European football’s governing body. “Clubs with heavy reliance on supporter attendance have been particularly impacted by the pandemic.”
As a result of slashed budgets, transfer spending by European clubs in last year’s summer window plummeted by 39 percent.
Reduced revenue streams have forced Uefa to temporarily ease Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules, which are aimed at ensuring clubs do not spend more than they earn.
However, Ceferin admitted more permanent changes may be required to FFP.