FC Porto's Europa League windfall so far | OneFootball

The winners of the second-tier continental club competition in 2002/03, still under the UEFA Cup name, and in 2010/11, already as the Europa League, the ‘dragons’ have totalled €23.612 million, above the €21.368 million of the ‘Gunners’.

These amounts exceed those of the previous season, when, in the first edition played with a 36-team league phase instead of a 32-team group stage, FC Porto earned €16.488 million after being knocked out by Italy’s Roma in the round of 16, while Sporting de Braga, eliminated in the main draw, went no further than €13.437 million.

As in 2024/25, the ‘blue and whites’ entered this season’s competition directly in the league phase and immediately received €4.31 million, while the Minho side added to that base amount another €350,000 from the preliminary qualifying rounds, in which they beat Bulgaria’s Levski Sofia, Romania’s Cluj and Gibraltar’s Lincoln Red Imps.

As for pillar value, linked to the market volume of each club’s country and to the clubs’ coefficient in UEFA’s five-year and 10-year rankings for the European and non-European shares respectively, FC Porto collected €9.31 million, against Sporting de Braga’s €6.797 million.

The ‘dragons’ earned €6.51 million from the European factor, in which they ranked seventh — the minimum €217,000 was multiplied by 30 shares — and €2.80 million from the non-European factor, as they were second — €80,000 times 35.

In the case of the ‘Gunners’, €4.557 million came from the European component, reflecting 16th place in that hierarchy, and €2.240 million from the non-European share, as they were in ninth position.

In addition to the entry prize and pillar value, both teams also earned money for their results from the league phase onward, in which FC Porto and Sporting de Braga finished in fifth and sixth place, both qualifying directly for the round of 16 with 17 points, from five wins, two draws and one defeat.

Each win was worth €450,000, for a total of €2.25 million, and each draw earned €150,000, up to €300,000, while the standings, with the remainder from the draws, gave bonuses of €2.592 million to Porto — 32 shares multiplied by €81,000 — and €2.511 million to Braga — 31 by €81,000.

As there were 25 draws in that phase, creating a surplus of €3.75 million, each position ended up being worth €81,000 more than the one immediately below it, instead of the €75,000 initially set by UEFA.

FC Porto and Sporting de Braga also received €600,000 for finishing in the top eight and €1.75 million for automatic entry into the round of 16, becoming the first Portuguese clubs to achieve that since the latest format change in the Europa League main draw, a scenario that allowed them to avoid the play-off.

While the ‘blue and whites’ beat Germany’s Stuttgart twice (2-1 away and 2-0 at home), the ‘Gunners’ first lost to Ferencváros (2-0), but turned the tie around at home against the Hungarians (4-0), securing the €2.5 million bonus tied to reaching the quarter-finals.

The total prize money can continue to rise if Sporting de Braga and FC Porto eliminate Betis and Nottingham Forest, coached by Vítor Pereira, who was crowned Portuguese champion with the ‘dragons’ in 2011/12 and 2012/13.

In that case, each club would add another €4.2 million and could then aim for €7 million by reaching the final, scheduled for 20 May at Beşiktaş Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey, and €6 million for winning the trophy.

UEFA also reserves €4 million for the finalists in the European Super Cup, to be played in August between the winners of the Champions League and the Europa League, with the winning team receiving an additional €1 million prize.

The two Portuguese representatives can only meet in the final, and they were in fact Europa League finalists in 2010/11, in the only all-Portuguese final in the history of continental competitions.

For now, the €23.612 million collected by FC Porto is only slightly below Betis’ €23.658 million and English side Aston Villa’s €23.803 million.

Immediately behind come two clubs eliminated in the round of 16, Italy’s Roma (€22.101 million) and France’s Lyon (€21.739 million), coached by Portuguese manager Paulo Fonseca, with Germany’s Freiburg (€21.427 million) ahead of Sporting de Braga (€21.368 million) in a competition that distributes total prize money of €565 million among clubs, far short of the Champions League’s €2.467 billion.

Sporting, the two-time Portuguese champions and Arsenal’s opponents in the quarter-finals, have already secured €79.582 million in Europe’s top club competition, more than three times the amount earned by the best Portuguese club in the Europa League.

Sporting de Braga host Betis on Wednesday at 17:45 at the Municipal Stadium of Braga in the first leg of the Europa League quarter-finals, a day before FC Porto face Forest at 20:00 at the Dragão Stadium in Porto, with the respective second legs scheduled for 16 April in Seville and Nottingham.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.