Summer transfers and sporting and financial insights the focus in new UEFA club competition report

The inaugural edition of the UEFA Club Competition Landscape Report takes a detailed look at the 80 clubs who will take part in the group stages of the 2019/20 UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League.

Produced by UEFA’s Intelligence Centre – created in 2017 to assist policy-makers and decision-takers in making informed judgments – the publication is packed with data, research and analysis. It shows the trends among these clubs, both in terms of on-field performance and off-the-pitch benchmarks.

The report is a much more boutique publication than the UEFA Intelligence Centre’s now established annual Benchmarking report, and its narrower scope on the 80 clubs in the club competition group stages this season allows for a more agile and up-to-date report.

The first section shines the light on how the 4,611 clubs who started the 2018/19 seasons in domestic top divisions and primary cup competitions became the 80 group stage teams. It includes such insights that 32% of teams that qualified for this season’s UEFA club competitions did so on the final match day of their league season, and 20 of the match-ups in this season’s qualifying rounds were settled by the away goals rule. Among the insights detailed in the club profiles’ section is the fact that the 80 clubs reported combined revenues of €11.7billion and operating profits of €817million in their most recent reporting and between them covered 58% of global transfer spending this summer.

UEFA Managing Director of Financial Sustainability & Research Andrea Traverso said: “The report shines a spotlight on the 80 clubs who will take part in the group stages of UEFA club competition in 2019/2020. The report is short and snappy, with infographics telling the story of how the 80 clubs qualified, illustrating how they compare, and highlighting global trends.

“UEFA’s Intelligence Centre is highly agile and constantly monitors topical trends, so the report already includes insights on this summer’s transfer activity, just days after the transfer window closed.”

These summer transfer insights from the 80 clubs include:

• The 80 clubs were responsible for 58% of all global transfer spending

• At €3,980m, summer transfer spending was 55% higher than summer 2018 For the whole of Europe, transfer spending was 29% up on last summer and 19% up on the previous record 2017 summer

• Forwards and defenders were the most transferred players this summer, combining equally for 70% of all transfers.

• Some 43% of the participating clubs have made their club record signing this summer.

• Players aged between 21 and 24 years accounted for almost half of all transfers at 47%.

• In contrast, only 7% of the summer’s transfers were of players over 28.

Other facts revealed in the report include:

• 16 different kit manufactures have produced the kits of the 80 clubs,

• Real Madrid have the most followers on social media with 222 million followers at the time of the report and UEFA Champions League success helped Liverpool become the most visited club website across the last year.

• The 80 participating clubs had 8.4 billion social media interactions (likes, shares or comments) between June 2018 and June 2019.

• The group stages will feature 24 different stadiums of 50,000+ capacity with an average capacity of 41,278.

• The 80 clubs have invested €971m in club facilities in the past 12 months.

• The average age of the head coaches of the 80 participating clubs is 48.6

Report for download

The report is available to view online in an interactive digital format here

The report can be downloaded in non-interactive pdf format here

Users with a device (smartphone, tablet or e-reader) compatible with an epub can download the interactive report here