Chelsea's Champions League win shows cash, not domestic cups, is king
By Neil Ashton
PUBLISHED: 23:02 GMT, 22 May 2012 | UPDATED: 23:02 GMT, 22 May 2012
By the time Liverpool claimed £100,000 in prize money for lifting the Carling Cup in February, Chelsea had already earned a staggering £42m from the Champions League.
Cash, not domestic cups, is king.
For Kenny Dalglish the Carling Cup victory over Cardiff was the start of something special, a throwback to a time when Liverpool had English football licked.
His euphoria was understandable, evoking memories of the club's first League Cup triumph in 1981 and convinced that Liverpool were on their way back.
Kings of Europe: Chelsea celebrate their Champions League triumph
In the Boston offices of Fenway Sports Group, the prize money barely registered. It does not even cover a week of Steven Gerrard's salary.
Top tier, European football is all that matters for the financial speculators and closer examination of the solidarity payments for Chelsea's triumph last Saturday explains why.
The moment Roman Abramovich's team finished second in the Barclays Premier League in 2010/11 to qualify automatically for the group stages, the cash till instantly rang to the tune of £3.1m.
They were then drawn to play six group matches, in games against Bayer Leverkusen, Valencia and Genk. For that, they were paid £445,000 per game from UEFA's TV and marketing pool.
For the three group wins, all of them at Stamford Bridge, they were paid a bonus from the £600m set aside each season. Each win in the group is worth £640,000.
Draws at Valencia and Genk earned them another bonus. This time, £323,000 a point.
By the turn of the year, Chelsea's gate receipts, participation fees and the share of marketing revenues from the market pool in the Champions League was already touching £42m.
After winning the group, there was the promise of more to come from a second round clash against Napoli.
No money in it: Liverpool's Carling Cup victory was not financially rewarding
They earned £2.42m for overcoming the Italians, another £2.66m for beating Benfica and £3.3m for their remarkable win over Barcelona in last month's semi-final.
In the final, UEFA paid out another £7.28m after they beat Bayern Munich in the penalty shootout.
Add the gate receipts from the six home games Chelsea staged during their run to the final and it represents another £2.4m in income for each game.
As Fenway sift through a depressingly shallow list of candidates to replace Dalglish as manager, Chelsea will be preparing to bank a cheque in excess of £50m from the Champions League alone.
There was a time when domestic silverware meant something in English football, but the UEFA Champions League has changed the rules.
Outdated: Kenny Dalglish
It's top four or nothing now for English clubs indulging in double-digit transfer fees and super-sized salaries for the star turns.
The domestic trophy count is largely irrelevant for the modern-day investors, a day out at Wembley and some corporate hospitality courtesy of the sponsors the only perk.
Back in 1981, when Dalglish was King, Liverpool won the League Cup for the first time.
They beat West Ham (1981), Tottenham (1982), Manchester United (1983) and Everton (1984) and Dalglish was in every Liverpool since.
Since then they have added the League Cup another four times, but they are becoming lost in the financial fog of Fenway Sports Group.
By the time Dalglish returned as Liverpool manager to replace Roy Hodgson in January 2011, the face of English football had changed forever.
Dalglish needed to be dragged kicking and screaming in to the modern world, but he was obsessed with the idea of winning their first trophy for seven years.
The last was the European Cup triumph under Rafa Benitez, a run to Istanbul that earned Liverpool £24.27m.
Their last appearance in the Champions League was in 2010, when they finished third in Group E behind Fiorentina and Lyon.
As they will discover next season, when a new television and marketing deal kicks in, missing out on Champions League football means another £24.27m black hole at the bare minimum.
There will be 60 broadcasters around the world next season, a record number for a competition that continues to expand.
In the money: Roman Abramovich (right) finally won the trophy he craved
Audience figures for last Saturday's final in the Allianz Arena are now bigger than the annual Super Bowl, one of the statistics that persuaded Fenway Sports Group that football is the future.
Liverpool's owners, like every other club playing at the high end of the Premier League, would sacrifice domestic Cup success for a place in the Champions League.
The money means that much to the clubs, even in an off season.
Chelsea, beaten by Manchester United in the quarter-final last season, still earned a staggering £35.861m from the competition.
United's television and marketing payments topped out at £43.039m for reaching last season's final against Barcelona at Wembley, let alone ticket sales from their six home matches.
Next season the solidarity payments are on the increase again, but Liverpool are already lagging behind.
The fans want classic ties against Juventus, Milan, Barcelona and Real Madrid, a reminder of the days when they were kings of Europe.
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