Graphic: The top 20 richest clubs in Europe

They have been derided as the prawn sandwich brigade and blamed for the apathy that leads to silent encounters between top teams, but corporate guests pouring in money from the comfort of their executive boxes are helping to make English clubs the richest in the world.

The Deloitte Football Money League, the most authoritative guide to where the money goes, shows Barclays Premier League clubs making a mass assault on the top 20 in the rich list.

As of June 2007, Real Madrid head the Money League for the third year in succession after a 20 per cent growth in income to €351 million (about £260 million), but Manchester United are an increasingly close second to make up a vanguard of six English clubs – along with Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United – who make up the single biggest national representation among the top 20.

That is just the start, according to Deloitte’s experts. An explosion of television income plus innovative approaches to entertaining corporate guests willing to pay over the odds for their plush match-day seats and lavish food and wine means that the clubs’ coffers are swelling fast.

The Deloitte team expects half the top 20 to be made up of English clubs next year, elbowing out traditionally strong rivals from Germany, Italy and France, with Manchester City, Aston Villa, Everton and West Ham United pushing to break the €100 million earnings barrier.

Dan Jones, a partner at Deloitte’s sports business group, said that broadcasting deals worth £2.7 billion coming on stream in the Premier League should change the order of Europe’s footballing rich list substantially. “With four English clubs already bubbling under the lower reaches of the top 20, we think 2007-08 could see England providing half the Money League clubs,” he says in the report.

If television is having its impact, takings at the turnstiles are proving spectacular, particularly for the big clubs that have expanded, such as Manchester United, or invested in vast new stadiums that have raised capacity, such as Arsenal.

Real attract huge home attendances of 71,500 but took a relatively poor £55.3 million in gate receipts in 2006-07, while Germany is enjoying a boom thanks to the raft of new stadiums built or improved for the 2006 World Cup finals.

Their takings pale by comparison, though, with the world-record £92.5 million paid at the Old Trafford gates. Arsenal, with the 60,000-seat Emirates Stadium, are not far behind with a season’s takings of £90.6 million, equivalent to an average of £3.1 million for each home match. Although Chelsea’s seating capacity is low by the standards of the leading clubs, their match-day takings are the third highest at £74.5 million.

But it is the English clubs’ ability to entertain their sponsors and their guests, plus the corporate “suits” who want to be associated with the most successful league in the world, that is helping to boost revenues.

Deloitte calculates that clubs in the Premier League took an average of £34 per spectator last season, compared with £22 in Spain, £16 in Germany, £15 in Italy and £11 in France. Ranked by match-day revenues alone, English clubs would make up six of the top ten earnings places, Deloitte says.

The moneymaking power of all the most powerful clubs in Europe is improving rapidly. Earnings of the top 20 clubs have grown at 12 per cent a year since the 1996-97 season, from £800 million to £2.5 billion.

They now account for 30 per cent of all the money going into European football and the 20 clubs at the top of the Money League generate three times more than they did a decade ago.

Jones also gave warning that the elite few richest clubs threaten to pull away from the not-quite-so-rich in financial power with each passing season. The gap between the fifth and sixth-placed club, Arsenal and AC Milan, is now about £24 million.

“A virtuous circle exists at the elite level with success on the pitch fuelling financial riches off the pitch and vice versa,” Jones said. “The top ten continue to dominate on the pitch with these clubs having secured 34 of the 43 domestic league titles on offer since our analysis began in 1996-97. The top ten clubs have also won the Champions League in nine of the last 11 seasons.”

Which is why Deloitte’s experts expect football’s top ten earners to dominate the Money League for years to come – unless England can provide some newly rich intruders.