FC Porto end European run with nearly €24m after Europa exit | OneFootball

A week after drawing 1-1 at home to Nottingham Forest, managed by former Porto coach Vítor Pereira, and to Betis, respectively, the “Dragons” were beaten away to the English side (1-0), while the “Gunners” came from behind to win away to the Spaniards (4-2).

FC Porto, winners of Europe’s second club competition in 2002/03 and 2010/11, missed out on the €4.2 million prize tied to reaching the semi-finals, unlike Sporting de Braga, who return to the group of semi-finalists for the first time since 2010/11, after having lost to the “Dragons” in an all-Portuguese final (1-0) played in Dublin, Republic of Ireland.

Both clubs surpassed the amounts earned last season, when, in the first edition with a 36-team league phase instead of the 32-team group stage, FC Porto received €16.488 million after being knocked out by Italy’s Roma in the round of 16, while Sporting de Braga, eliminated in the main stage, earned no more than €13.437 million.

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

As for the value pillar, linked to the market size of each club’s country and to the clubs’ coefficient in UEFA’s five- and 10-year rankings for the European and non-European components, FC Porto took in €9.31 million, compared with Sporting de Braga’s €6.797 million.

The “Dragons” received €6.51 million from the European component, in which they ranked seventh — the minimum amount of €217,000 was multiplied by 30 shares — and €2.80 million from the non-European component, having ranked second — €80,000 times 35.

In addition to the starting prize and the value pillar, both teams also profited from their performance in the league phase, in which FC Porto and Sporting de Braga finished fifth and sixth, 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 yielded €150,000, up to €300,000, while the final standings, with the balance from the draws, gave Porto a bonus of €2.592 million — 32 shares multiplied by €81,000 — and Braga €2.511 million — 31 times €81,000.

As there were 25 draws in that phase, creating a surplus of €3.75 million, each position ended up being worth an extra €81,000 compared with the place immediately below, instead of the €75,000 initially set by UEFA.

FC Porto and Sporting de Braga also earned €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 this since the latest format change in the Europa League main stage, which 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 to the Hungarians (4-0), securing the €2.5 million bonus associated with reaching the quarter-finals.

FC Porto and Sporting de Braga had different paths in the quarter-finals, with the “Dragons’” total prize money of €23.612 million falling below the figures of the four semi-finalists, which, besides the “Gunners” with €25.568 million, also include England’s Aston Villa (€28.003 million) and Nottingham Forest (€24.086 million), and Germany’s Freiburg (€25.627 million).

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