Real Madrid, Barcelona top sport’s finances

The Spanish rivals Real Madrid and Barcelona took first and second place in Deloitte’s annual study of the sport’s finances, with English champion Manchester United slipping a place to third because of the weakness of the British pound rather than its 716.5 million pound ($1.07 billion) debt.

Madrid generated 401.4 million euros ($567.3 million) in the 12 months ending June 30, according to the report released Tuesday by British accountancy firm Deloitte.

European champion Barcelona was ranked second in the list of 20 biggest clubs according to revenue with 365.9 million euros ($517.2 million), moving up a place to return to the position it occupied two years ago.

Although the economic downturn meant that nine clubs showed a decrease in revenue in local currency, the combined income of the top 20 clubs was up about 26 million euros ($36.7 million) from the previous year at 3.9 billion euros ($5.5 billion).

Despite a disappointing season in which it finished runner-up in Spain to Barcelona and again failed to progress beyond the second round round of the Champions League, Madrid kept first place in Deloitte’s list for a fifth straight year.

Madrid’s contract with Mediapro helped push up income from broadcast 18 percent to 160.8 million euros ($227.3 million). Manchester United generated 43.7 million euros ($61.8 million) less from broadcasting than Madrid despite receiving 18.1 million euros ($25.6 million) more from Champions League distributions.

Manchester United generated 327 million euros ($462.2 million), including 127.7 million euros ($180.5 million) in match-day revenue.