Soccer: competition prize money market

Soccer is one of the most popular sports on the planet and the following describes the prize money market for competitions in Europe, according to Brera Holdings.

There are three UEFA competitions: the Champions League (CL), the Europa League (EL) and the Europa Conference League (Conference).

First and foremost, a base participation prize is awarded to each of the 32 clubs that are admitted to the «group stage» of each UEFA competition.

For the 2021-2022 season, the base participation prize for each club was €15.64 million for the CL, €3.63 million for the EL and €2.94 million for the Conference.

Each competition has different rules on how a club can occupy one of the 32 places in the group stage of the competition, but generally they are either admitted automatically based on UEFA’s entry criteria or gain admission through play-offs.

In the CL, 26 clubs are automatically admitted to the group stage based on UEFA’s criteria, with the remaining six places being shared among clubs that qualify by virtue of being league champions or finishing between second and fourth in their national championship.

For the EL, 12 clubs are automatically admitted according to UEFA criteria, 10 are admitted by transfer from the CL by losing any of the CL knockout rounds or the third qualifying round, and 10 are winners of the EL knockout round.

Soccer

Conference, 10 are admitted after losing the EL playoff round, and 22 are admitted after winning the Conference playoff round.

Clubs from smaller European countries, including Eastern European countries where Brera Holdings is exploring club acquisition opportunities, as discussed below, generally cannot gain automatic admission to the CL or EL due to the effect of certain coefficients that UEFA uses to form the automatic access lists for these competitions, but can potentially reach the group stage through the CL, EL or Conference playoffs.

In addition, participants in certain knockout competitions may also receive participation awards without reaching the group stage of a competition, ranging from €150,000 in the event of elimination in the first round of the Conference playoffs, to €5 million in the event of elimination in the final round of the CL playoffs.