Real Madrid tops football club rich list

For the first time Real Madrid has topped the rich list of clubs, as ranked by income, drawn up by accountants Deloitte. For the past eight years since the list was set up it has been headed by Manchester United. But the Spanish club has trebled its income from sponsorship and merchandise in the last four years to overhaul United. In particular it has made use of David Beckham and other top players to penetrate the lucrative Asian market.

The top twenty clubs, with last year's ranking in brackets, and the total income figure are:

1. Real Madrid (2), £186.2m 2. Manchester United (1), £166.4m 3. AC Milan (3), £158m 4. Juventus (5), £154.9m 5. Chelsea (4), £149.1m 6. Barcelona (7), £140.4m 7. Bayern Munich (9), £128.0m 8. Liverpool (10), £122.4m 9. Internazionale (8), £119.7m 10. Arsenal (6), £115.7m 11. AS Roma (12), £89.0m 12. Newcastle (11), £87.1m 13. Tottenham Hotspur (14), £70.5m 14. Schalke 04 (17), £65.8m 15. Lyon (-), £62.7m 16. Celtic (13), £62.6m 17. Manchester City (16), £60.9m 18. Everton (-), £60.9m 19. Valencia (-), £57.2m 20. Lazio (-), £59.1m Nine of the best funded clubs are thus from Britain, four from Italy, four from Spain, two from Germany and one from France.