PSV starts on Tuesday evening for the third season in a row in the Champions League. This European tournament is nicknamed the ‘billion -dollar ball’ and that is not for nothing. Last season, PSV broke all its own income record by getting the last sixteen and thus playing 73.3 million euros together. Can the Eindhoven players already break that record?
In total, organizer UEFA, the European Football Association, distributes around 2.5 billion euros during the tournament this season among the participating teams.
In its own Philips Stadium, the champion of the Netherlands will receive the Belgian leader Union Sint-Gilles in the opening play round on Tuesday. But without PSV playing even one match, the people of Eindhoven have already earned 18.62 million euros. The strat premium for each participant.
In total, PSV plays eight games in the group stage of the billion -dollar ball. The UEFA pays 2.1 million euros per victory and seven tons are transferred in a draw, according to figures from UEFA.
Classification
And now it threatens to become somewhat complicated. Because if PSV ends with the first eight, which ensures that you as a club are assured of a place in the last sixteen in the Champions League, the Eindhoven team will collect 11 million euros. But PSV, just like last season, will stop somewhere between places 9 to 24 on the ranking, the club can ‘only’ add 1 million euros to the millions already earned.
In addition, there is an extra bonus for the position that a club reaches on the ranking of 36 teams at the end of the ‘League phase’. This is the name of the group stage nowadays because since last season we have been working with one large ranking, instead of separate groups of four teams. If you finish last, a club will receive 275,000 euros. 275,000 euros is added for each place higher in the ranking.
So, just like last year, PSV would finish in 14th place, then Peter Bosz’s team will receive another 6,325,000 million euros. There is also an extra bonus ready for places 1 to 16 on the ranking. The clubs that end in places 1 to 8 receive a bonus of 2 million euros, while spot 9 to 16 clubs yields one million extra.
We continue to count: Suppose PSV is going to be very high and gets the quarterfinals. Then the Eindhoven team will receive another 12.5 million euros. A place in the semi -final yields an additional 15 million euros and the Eindhoven team were allowed to reach the final wonderfully, then another 18.5 million euros is waiting. We dream further and PSV wins “the cup with the big ears”. If that happens, the Dutch champion roofs another 6.5 million euros.
Total calculation
What if PSV wins every match of the tournament and therefore ends first in the group stage? Ok, it’s not very likely, but then there is a bag of money with around 110 million euros* (!) Ready for the theoretical Champions League winner from Eindhoven.
So there is a lot to be earned in the Champions League and so it is important that PSV shows its best side and performs as well as possible. Because performance is accompanied by income in the Champions League, a lot of income.
*Stadium income and TV funds are not included in the sum. This is purely about the prize money that UEFA pays.