Roma’s Champions League Run: The Money So Far

I took a glance at our trusty old reference site, Calcio e Finanza, to once again make a very dry finance post (just one look at my bank balance right now says everything about how little qualified I am for this) and answer a couple of questions following the never-say-die turn of events in Roma’s 2017/18 Champions’ League run.

1. How much Champions League money has Roma won so far?
2. Will this money be enough to satisfy the FFP summer deadline without selling key players?

The short answer to the first question is that Roma’s current Champions’ League revenue stands at €93.8 million for the 2017/18 season so far.

That number springs from €38.2 million in prize money + €42.8 million in TV market pool money + €12.8 million in gate receipts.

If you want to skip the convoluted way of breaking down the prize and TV money to just look at the Calzio e Finanza table - it’s here.

Competition Money Won So Far - €38.2 million

Since the most prize money any one single team in this season’s Champions League can collect for winning the whole thing is €57.2 million, Roma has collected 67% of the prize money available to them so far.

Reaching the final would gain the club a guaranteed minimum of €11 million on top of this figure just for participating in Kiev 2018. Or the Lupi could go one better and gain €15.5 million in the final for... well... the other outcome.

Though I think everyone could care less about winning the money over the ‘Big Ears’ Daniele De Rossi would be holding in his hands, in that case.

Market Pool Money So Far - €42.8 million

Juventus’ demise at the quarter final stage was Roma’s gain to the tune of only €1.57 million more than what the Giallorossi stood to have earnt, should the Turin side have joined them in the semis. That’s a pretty negligible amount, emphasised by the fact that Roma advancing to the Final would only see Juventus’ share fall another €600,000 euros, with that sum heading Roma’s way.

The numbers make a big case for the collective success of Serie A being worth far more to Roma by the time her rivals have made the knockout rounds.

To that end, Roma’s quarter-final second leg vs Barcelona at the Stadio Olimpico drew in the second-highest amount of TV viewers for a single Champions League night this season so far, behind only Tottenham vs Juventus at Wembley in the round of 16.

Matchday Revenue So Far - €12.8 million

The Barcelona game also fell just short of Roma’s record gate receipts for a CL fixture that was originally set in THAT group phase game against Bayern Munich in 2014/15 (65,000 attendance and €3.7 million gate receipts).

• Group stage match 1 vs Atletico: 36,064 crowd - €1,773,386 gate receipts
• Group stage match 2 vs Chelsea: 55,035 crowd - €2,993,912 gate receipts
• Group stage match 3 vs Qarabag: 34,248 crowd - €1,421,292 gate receipts
• Round of 16 second leg vs Shakhtar: 47,693 crowd - €2,964,212 gate receipts
• Quarterfinal second leg vs Barcelona: 56,575 crowd - €3,674,762 gate receipts

FFP at the Gates: Will This Season’s Run Be Enough?

It’d take someone with really keen attention to Roma’s half-year reports, and up-to-date info on the expenses since then, to give a full-on answer to this question.

Certainly, James Pallotta picking this week to remind the Mayor’s office in Rome how much the club is spending to secure building permission for the new stadium seems like enough of a cautionary note.

“Nobody knows that, one of the issues with when you’re trying to buy players in transfer markets is the other stuff we’re going through.

“We’ve spent well over €60m - it might be €65-70m - going through the process, the drawings, the delays… everything.

“You just can’t keep spending money like that when you’re not getting the returns that you need in time, so we need that stadium.”

Roma’s main objective looks like being able to sell players on her own terms by the end of her FFP settlement agreement - which provisionally ends this June 2018. But on that note, there is still Nyon’s decision to come - either this month or next - as to Roma’s penalty, if any, for failing last summer’s deadline.

Either way, Roma is looking very strong in terms of not having to sell any players by a forced June deadline, meaning the club can avoid a Pjanic/Salah situation of yesteryear. But that is totally different from Roma having to sell players to fund its summer transfer market.

Despite Di Francesco recently bringing out ‘very good’ to ‘heroic’ performances from players like Juan Jesus, Bruno Peres and whichever marginal squad player you want to think of... the idea that Roma can get by this summer by keeping all key players and selling off the complementary parts still looks very unlikely.

Monchi claimed, when asked before the second leg against Shakhtar, that Roma’s summer budget was built independent of how well Roma continued to do in the Champions League. This could easily have been a bluff to take pressure off the team and coach. Equally it could be valid given that both matchday operating costs and player bonuses mean expenses go up, the deeper Roma runs into the Champions League latter stages. While the near €100-million euro figure of Roma’s CL campaign looks good so far, the final figure the club ends up pocketing could be much less extravagant on the bottom line.

There will likely be at least one sale of a key player (if not more) to fund the any buys in the transfer market this summer.

And that, coupled with any further Champions League success with this current team would earn, makes a goodbye to a key player in this squad - for some fans - only more difficult to swallow.