Arsenal Mania

Arsenal fifth richest club in the world

Written by Jonathan Chong on Thursday, February 14, 2008

Arsenal have been ranked fifth in the world by Deloitte based on revenue from the 2006/07.

Deloitte's figures take into account income from ticket sales, merchandising and broadcasting contracts but do not include transfer revenues and does not calculate profitability.

Increased revenues from the Emirates Stadium have had a positive effect, with the club jumping from ninth to fifth.

The figures also showed that Arsenal's operating profits before player trading and exceptional items was £51.2m, up from £13.7m the previous year.

Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood said: "The best way that Arsenal can continue to deliver success is by maintaining a business that pays its own way.

"This philosophy helped establish our objectives for the club's move away from Highbury, and Emirates Stadium now provides Arsenal with the increased income, profitability, cash generation and firm financial foundations from which we will continue to build trophy-winning Arsenal teams for many years to come."

Arsenal's income for 2006/07 moves it close to Real Madrid, whose turnover was £202m for the 2005-06 season.

And more than 90% of the housing units at "The Stadium - Highbury Square" development at their former stadium are already pre-sold, with final completion sales expected to comfortably exceed £300m.

However pretax-profit dropped to £5.6m from £15.9m the year before, after taking into account a £21m one-off charge to refinance the £260m it cost to build its new stadium.

1) Real Madrid: £236.2m
2) Man Utd: £212.1m
3) Barcelona: £195.3m
4) Chelsea: £190.5m
5) Arsenal: £177.6m
6) AC Milan: £153m
7) Bayern Munich: £150.3m
8) Liverpool: £133.9m
9) Inter Milan: £131.3m
10) AS Roma: £106.1m