FC Porto's million-pound Europa League earnings 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 earned 23.612 million euros, above the 21.368 million euros of the ‘Gunners’.

These amounts surpass those of the previous season, when, in the first edition played with a 36-team league phase instead of the 32-team group stage, FC Porto took in 16.488 million euros, 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 euros.

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

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

The ‘Dragons’ took in 6.51 million euros from the European factor, in which they ranked seventh — the minimum 217,000 euros was multiplied by 30 shares — and 2.80 million euros from the non-European factor, having ranked second — 80,000 euros times 35.

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

In addition to the entry prize and the value pillar, the two teams also earned money from their results from the league phase onward, 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 euros, for a total of 2.25 million euros, and each draw earned 150,000, up to 300,000, while the final standings, with the remainder from the draws, gave bonuses of 2.592 million euros to Porto — 32 shares multiplied by 81,000 euros — and 2.511 million euros to Braga — 31 times 81,000.

As there were 25 draws in that phase, with a surplus of 3.75 million euros, each position came to be worth an extra 81,000 euros more than the one immediately below, instead of the 75,000 euros initially set by UEFA.

FC Porto and Sporting de Braga also received 600,000 euros for finishing in the top 8 and 1.75 million euros for automatic entry into the round of 16, becoming the first Portuguese clubs to achieve that feat 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 euro 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 euros, and could then aim for 7 million euros for reaching the final, scheduled for 20 May at Beşiktaş Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey, and 6 million euros for winning the trophy.

UEFA also sets aside 4 million euros for the finalists of the UEFA 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 euro 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 euros earned by FC Porto is only slightly below Betis’ 23.658 million euros and English side Aston Villa’s 23.803 million euros.

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

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

Sporting de Braga host Betis on Wednesday at 17:45 at Braga Municipal Stadium in the first leg of the Europa League quarter-finals, one day before FC Porto face Forest at 20:00 at the Estádio do Dragão 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.