Liverpool are on course to earn millions more from next season's Champions League.
The Reds, still in the hunt for an unprecedented quadruple following their 2-2 draw at Manchester City on Sunday, are fighting on all possible fronts with just weeks of the season remaining, with a Premier League title, Champions League crown and FA Cup triumph all still in their sights having already bagged the League Cup last month.
Last year the focus for Jurgen Klopp's men after a troubled campaign was to make sure that they made the top four and delivered Champions League football, something that they managed after a superb run of form down the final stretch of the season saw them clinch third spot and a place in European football's most prestigious and lucrative knockout club competition. After the wretched festive period and January that they endured, where the loss of key players to injury impacted them significantly, to seal qualification was a huge boon for a football club that has its the success of its business model aided to a large degree by success on the pitch.
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There is no concern around whether or not Liverpool will make next season's Champions League, that is already pretty much assured. The only thing that Reds fans will be concerned with is whether they enter the competition as champions of England and champions of Europe, there to defend the title. Whatever happens, Liverpool look set to earn more money through next year's competition by virtue of their excellent performances thus far in the 2021/22 competition.
Liverpool take a 3-1 aggregate lead back to Anfield for their quarter-final showdown with Benfica on Wednesday evening in what is their 10th Champions League encounter of the season, after goals from Ibrahima Konate, Sadio Mane and Luis Diaz delivered success in Portugal last week. There would be few who would bet against Klopp and his charges making through to the semi-final and a step closer to a final showdown in Paris on May 28.
The Champions League has been enormously lucrative for Liverpool in recent years. Having spent six of the first seven years of Fenway Sports Group ownership outside of the Champions League, the success since 2018, where the Reds were beaten finalists, to now has seen them improve their UEFA coefficient ranking considerably, and that is something that means more money for the pot for next season.
European clubs get a slice of the TV market pool shared among the 32 qualifiers on a sliding scale basis. The coefficient is worked out through historical performance from clubs over a 10-year period, with the clubs accruing points for their successes in each Champions League campaign. Liverpool's spell away from elite European competition left them playing catch-up, but they have made some considerable ground in recent seasons, something aided by their performance in this year's competition which ranks them at the very top of the class with 26 points.
Based upon the distribution of Champions League revenues for 2021/22, Liverpool received €22.7m (£19m) from the market pool. That figure was reached by the Reds receiving their chunk of the €600.6m (£502.5m) that is broken down 528 parts valued at €1.137m (£0.95m) and then distributed to clubs based upon their coefficient position among the 32 qualifying clubs. For example, the lowest ranked side in this year's Champions League, Moldovan side Sheriff Tiraspol, received €1.137m from the market pool while the side with the largest coefficient, Real Madrid, received that sum multiplied by the number of teams, 32, to earn €36.38m (£30.44m) from the market pool.
Liverpool's ten-year coefficient sees them in 13th on the 10-year list, behind Borussia Dortmund, Sevilla and FC Porto. Based on the current state of play, the Reds would move into 10th on next year's list, with all three clubs mentioned likely to qualify for next year's competition based on their current domestic performance. That would mean that Liverpool would claim €26.15m (£21.9m) from next year's market pool. Even if Liverpool were to win every game they may face in this season's Champions League and lift the trophy they would still be four points short of Manchester United who occupy ninth on the list, although United look destined to miss out on next season's Champions League.
As a new TV deal comes into play from 2024 and the Champions League undergoes major reform through the 'Swiss Model' that will see it take on four extra teams and a league format, with more games played for each team, the slice of the market pool pie will only increase. The key for Liverpool by that time will be to have themselves in a position where they lift their coefficient ranking so significantly as to make the most of the revenues that will be on offer.
