Taking part in the UEFA Champions League can prove extremely lucrative for a football club.
As such, it’s treated as the pinnacle competition by Europe’s elite teams as strong performances can additionally bring in more income, especially if a club reaches the latter stages of the tournament.
For the expanded 2024/25 campaign, competition organizers announced the total purse for this season’s Champions League would increase to €2.437 billion ($2.71bn/£2.06bn) from €2.03 billion ($2.19bn/£1.74bn) in 2023/24.
The main reason for this is 36 teams competing in the new league phase, up from 32 in the traditional group stage.
The Sporting News brings you a full breakdown of the prize money allocations for league-phase and knockout-stage participants in the 2024/25 Champions League.
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Champions League prize money 2024/25
Last season, eventual winners Real Madrid had a maximum prize pot of €85.14m on offer, although that could only have been achieved by Carlo Ancelotti’s men if they had won every single match they played in the competition.
Overall there are several different ways in which sides participating in the competition can gain prize money. The biggest wedge of the total prize pot is distributed amongst the clubs as a reward for their results in the competition as outlined below in the table.
Performance-related prize money accounts for 37.5% (€914m) of the overall pot, down proportionately from last season’s 55%. The main reason for this change is the newly created value pillar taking up 35%.
The other 27.5% of the pool is made up of equal shares — starting fee, which is divided between each of the 36 clubs in the league phase
Performance-based prize money (37.5% of total)
| Stage | Prize Money (per club) |
|---|---|
| Winner | €25m ($27.8m) |
| Runner-up | €18.5m ($20.5m) |
| Semifinalists | €15m ($16.6m) |
| Quarterfinalists | €12.5m ($13.9) |
| Round of 16 | €11m ($12.2) |
| Reaching knockout round playoff | €1m ($1.1m) |
| League-phase wins | €2.1m ($2.3m) |
| League-phase draws | €700k ($777,883) |
Additionally, teams will be paid a new league ranking bonus based on their final ranking in the league phase. The league ranking bonus is divided into 666 equal shares of initially valued at €275,000, with the team finishing 36th taking home that solitary share. The 35th team will take two shares and so on until the team finishing top is awarded 36 shares. The undistributed €700,000 from each drawn game will proportionately increase the value of the shares given to each position.
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Value pillar (35% of total)
This accounts for €853m of the prize pot and is a combination of the payments that related to individual club’s coefficients and broadcast market payouts. The value pillar is divided into two parts: a European part and non-European part.
The amounts allocated will be proportional to the outcome of media rights sales in UEFA markets and markets outside of the governing body’s jurisdiction concluded by July 1, 2024. In an example cited by UEFA in its competition literature, if European markets contributed 75% of the overall media rights then the value pillar would be divided accordingly with 75% for the European part and 25% for the non-European part.
In the European part, participating countries are ranked based on their domestic broadcasters’ contribution to the overall media revenue. Clubs from those countries are then ranked based on their performances in UEFA competitions over the past five seasons. A separate ranking using the five-year UEFA coefficient of each participating club is also drawn up and the average placement of each club across these two rankings will see them ranked one to 36.
As with the league ranking bonus, the European part will be split into 666 shares and distributed accordingly, from one to the team placed 36th upwards. The non-European part also uses the share system and is distributed in accordance to each team’s 10-year UEFA coefficient. These coefficients will not have the bonus points for titles that were factored into UEFA’s calculations for the 2021-24 cycle.
Equal shares — starting fee (27.5% of total)
This final section is worth €670m. According to UEFA: “Each of the 36 clubs that qualify for the league phase can expect to receive a league phase allocation of €18.62m, split into a down-payment of €17.87m and a balance of €750,000.
How to buy Champions League tickets 2024/25
Once dates and times for Champions League fixtures are confirmed, the ticket process will begin. Other than the final itself, tickets cannot be purchased from UEFA directly for European matches.
Instead, the primary ticket sales are conducted by the participating clubs themselves so that fans can access them seamlessly just as they would other matches.
Once the tickets are distributed, fans can still get tickets on secondary market, with StubHub International as the best place to find tickets to Champions League games.