European clubs will profit the most from the World Cup

While eight years ago clubs received 40 million dollars for the participation of their players in the World Cup, this year it was already 209 million.

European clubs benefit the most from the championship
Without elite footballers, who in most cases are employees of clubs, the World Cup would not be the most watched sporting tournament in the world. The International Football Federation FIFA realized this ten years ago and created the so-called Club Benefits Programme. In short: every club in the world that sends its player/employee to the championship receives financial compensation. Before the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, FIFA allocated 40 million dollars for this, four years ago 70 million. And for this year’s World Cup in Russia, it was already 209 million dollars. The federation has now published the exact distribution of this sum among the continents and clubs. As with previous championships, European clubs will benefit the most from the latest one – specifically almost 158 million dollars.

One Slovak club
The creation of this program is mainly the work of the European Club Association, which, due to the number of players it provided, exerted the greatest pressure on FIFA. “I am proud that ECA led the way in securing proper recognition for clubs through this compensation system,” said Andrea Agnelli, chairman of the ECA and at the same time president of the Italian football giant Juventus Turin. A total of 416 football clubs from 63 different national federations thus received money for the championship. Among the hundreds of teams was also our DAC Dunajská Streda, which as the only club from Slovakia sent a footballer to the World Cup – defender Éric Davis represented Panama. According to the compensation breakdown published on fifa.com, the club from Dunajská Streda will receive exactly 254,700 dollars. “This amount is not adequate. Clubs invest significant amounts in players throughout the year, and the risks associated with their participation in the World Cup are not small. Looking at the total revenues of the championship and the amounts going to clubs, it is too little,” said Jan Van Daele, sports director of DAC Dunajská Streda, recently for the Economic Daily regarding the Club Benefits Programme. According to him, the sum is especially low in the case of players from the biggest clubs, whose value is counted in tens of millions.

Manchester received the most
The radical, almost threefold increase in resources allocated to the Club Benefits Programme was also reflected in the amount of money individual clubs received. While in 2014 the most – 1.73 million dollars – went to Bayern Munich, this time the leader was English side Manchester City with a full five million. “It can be assumed that with the constant growth in the value of clubs and their players, these payments will increase for future World Cups as well,” said Jozef Tokos, sports analyst and football intermediary. The key to dividing the total amount of 209 million was simple: in total, 736 footballers were nominated in national teams for the World Cup, spending over 24,000 days at the tournament. This time included two weeks before the start of the championship and then the time their team spent at the event. The amount per day therefore came to 8,530 dollars. (...)