Aston Villa will earn less than Tottenham in Premier League prize money despite finishing above them in 2023-24.
The race to finish in the top four was concluded before the final day of the season, with Spurs’ defeat to Man City last week consigning them to the Europa League in 2024-25 as well as effectively snatching the title away from North London rivals Arsenal.
Unai Emery‘s side meanwhile went into the campaign riding a wave of optimism but have exceeded all expectations with their stunning achievements this season.
Champions League football will be enormously lucrative for them next term, but they actually banked marginally less than 5th-place Spurs in terms of their payments from the Premier League.
How much will Villa and Tottenham earn in Premier League prize money?
According to football finance analyst Chris Weatherspoon, Villa are set to earn £161.8m from the Premier League‘s central pot.
Spurs meanwhile will bank £164.1m, over £2m more than their victorious rivals in the race for the top four.
They are the fifth and forth biggest earners in the English top flight this season, behind champions Man City (£174.9m), Arsenal (£174.7m) and Liverpool (£170.3m).
How does the prize money distribution system work?
There are six sources from which teams in the Premier League are aware awarded prize money.
Three of those pots – the central commercial payment, domestic share and overseas share – are worth exactly the same for all 20 Premier League teams.
The cash from those three pots amounts to about two thirds of the overall cash on offer. Villa and Spurs are exactly equal in this department.
The rest of the cash is awarded according to a merit-based allocation of domestic TV money, merit-based allocation of overseas TV money and a set fee per broadcast game.
Villa earned more than Spurs in both merit-based categories by virtue of their superior league position, but the North London club surpassed Villa based on how many times their matches were on TV.
How much will Villa earn in next season’s Champions League?
Regardless of their take-home being slightly lower than Spurs’, Villa are in for a money-spinning campaign in the Champions League next term.
As Villa’s first season at the top table of European football since 1982-83 coincides with the first year of a new Champions League format, the club can expect it to be a particularly lucrative season.
That is just as well, as Villa are one of several clubs whose spending is seeing them flirt with the upper limits of financial fair play (now called Profit and Sustainability Rules, or PSR for short).
Villa will trouser at least £64m for their participation, which in turn will see them break their own turnover record as well as the turnover record for a club outside the so-called ‘Big Six’.