Liverpool could be a £50m headache for Tottenham Hotspur

Liverpool still have a chance in the Champions League but could still find financial comfort with a fifth place in the Premier League

With three games to go and four points from the top four, Liverpool could be too late for the Champions League.

Second in the Premier League on six consecutive wins, Jurgen Klopp’s side remained in contention until the end thanks to surprising points dropped at Newcastle United and Manchester United.

Three wins and nine points from the remaining games might not guarantee a place in the lucrative Champions League with Newcastle or Manchester United up for grabs. But the hope is eternal and the fact that Liverpool are even in serious talks so late in the season is quite remarkable given the difficulties they have faced this season.

And even if the Reds fail to do so, their efforts will not have been entirely in vain. At the start of March, Liverpool were seventh, nine points behind fourth-placed Tottenham Hotspur. Spurs had managed to establish themselves as genuine top-four contenders despite their own off-field uproar.

Just over two months later, the Reds are in good stead for fifth place and next season’s Europa League, even if they miss out on the coveted Champions League title which has become a key part of their stand-alone business model under the Fenway Sports Group.

Tottenham, who found themselves in the position of having to sack the caretaker manager who ran the store after Antonio Conte was sacked, have fallen behind at a worrying rate in recent weeks. The north London side are now in seventh place, five points behind Liverpool after playing one more game and being challenged for a league place by a rebounding Aston Villa side under Unai Emery of the Europa Conference League. If he doesn’t make it to the Champions League, a narrative could emerge that the Reds had better step out of the European equation altogether and regroup, without the added distraction of Europa League matches and increased pressure. on the calendar.

Financially, however, the different directions Liverpool and Spurs have taken in recent weeks have had a significant financial impact. And for players like the Reds, whose ability to operate in the transfer market relies on the strength of the club’s balance sheet, it’s important to mitigate the impact of missing the top four.

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Even if a fifth-place finish and the Europa League aren’t as good as a fourth-place finish and the Champions League, it remains a positive feat for clubs.

Reaching the group stage of the Europa League is worth £3.2m for rival clubs, compared to £13.7m for the Champions League and £2.6m on offer for the Europa Conference League. Qualification from the group stage earns £1 million for the Europa League and £520,000 for the Europa Conference League. Around £570,000 will be offered to clubs for winning matches in the Europa League group stage, with around £190,000 for a draw. However, these figures are poles apart from the £2.4m for a Champions League group stage win and £800,000 on offer for a draw, not to mention the £8.4m that can be won by qualifying for the knockout stage.

Before taking into account the share of the TV market pool that clubs share in competitions and other commercial considerations, and the prize money on offer for winning individual group matches, the Champions League winners will fetch around £73.3m in take-home prize money for playing in each round, compared to £19.8m in the Europa League and £12.7m in the Europa Conference League.

The Europa League success for the clubs is shared by a total prize pool of just over £400m, a figure dwarfed by the £1.8bn prize pool in the Champions League. The division of the television market pool between the clubs also differs significantly, with around £121m split against a figure of £261m in the Champions League.

However, a run to the Europa League finals could bring the clubs revenue in excess of £20m, while the additional matchday revenue that would come is also significant. Liverpool earn around £3m per home game, with Anfield selling out on nearly every competitive occasion.

Making use of the potential for as many as seven home games would impact matchday revenue, which for the 2021/22 financial year was £86m.

Then there’s the difference between finishing fifth and finishing eighth in the Premier League, where the tables were reversed a few weeks ago when it came to the fate of Liverpool and Tottenham. Spurs are now holding on for seventh place and are looking for an outside bet to secure that place when Aston Villa form is considered.

If the Reds finish in fifth place, they would receive an amount of around £32.9m based on last season’s central payments figures to Premier League clubs, taking into account merit-based payments from both domestic and international teams. Conversely, there is a £6.1m difference with clubs finishing eighth, which brings in around £26.8m in payments earned from the League’s two markets, where the money comes from massive broadcast deals that the competition won globally.