Aston Villa and Wolves both climb football's money league as club-record figures revealed

The latest edition of the Deloitte Football Money League has Villa ranked as the 14th highest-earning club in Europe last year after recording club-record income totalling more than £390m.

That was an increase of more than £120m on the previous season and saw the club rise four places in the Money League table, up from 18th and above Premier League rivals Newcastle and West Ham, though still behind the top flight's so-called "Big Six".

A large portion of the rise came courtesy of the £72m prize money banked during the run to the Champions League last eight, a jump of nearly £60m on the cash received for reaching the previous season’s Conference League semi-finals.   

High-profile home matches against Bayern Munich, Celtic and Paris Saint-Germain - coupled with some controversially high ticket prices - helped boost matchday revenues by nearly £25m.

New sponsorship deals with Adidas and Betano also saw commercial income almost double, with Deloitte’s figures showing it standing at more than £70m.

Perhaps most significantly, the surge in income saw Villa’s turnover-to-wages ratio plummet from 96 to 71 per cent.

That would leave Villa, who were fined by Uefa for breaching cost control measures in the 2023-24 season, well placed to be within last season’s limit which allowed clubs to spend a maximum 80 per cent of their income on wages, transfer fees and agents’ fees.

On the flip side, those figures also further underline the cost of missing out on qualifying for this season’s Champions League, with the club’s revenues likely to shrink and the pressure to stay within Uefa’s financial boundaries once again heightened.

Wolves also moved up the Money League table two places, from 29th to 27th, despite their revenues remaining static at around £178m.

That was also only enough to see them ranked the 14th highest-earning club in the Premier League, with Bournemouth climbing above them in the standings.

Real Madrid topped the Money League once again, with revenues which topped more than one billion Euros for the second successive season.

Liverpool overtook Manchester City as the highest-earning English club, though for the first time there was no Premier League representation in the top-four.

The Reds placed fifth on the list, with revenues of around £730m behind Real, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain.

Manchester City dropped from second to sixth due to a lower Premier League finish and early Champions League exit, while Manchester United dropped from fourth to eighth after missing out on Europe’s elite club competition completely. Tottenham and Chelsea remained ninth and tenth in the league respectively.