See New Top 3 Richest Football Teams As Manchester United Gets Knocked Out Of The List

Manchester United has been relegated from the top three in a global rich list of football teams.The English club has been squeezed out by greater success at Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich.

The list, compiled by ‘Big Four’ accountancy firm Deloitte, is based revenues accrued during the 2012-13 season.

For the ninth year Real Madrid headed the list, with revenues of €518.9m (£424m). The Spanish team has now broken a record previously held by Manchester  United.

Placed in fourth with revenues of €423.8m (£346m), Manchester United is ranked one spot above French champions Paris Saint Germain, who are now backed by the financial might of the Qatar Investment Authority.

Details of Manchester United’s fall in the rankings came the club’s calamitous season on the field took another turn for the worse as they dropped out of the Capital One Cup with defeat to Sunderland in the semi-finals on Wednesday night.

Despite winning the Premier League last season under Alex Ferguson, new manager David Moyes has struggled to make an impact with the club currently sitting 7th in the table, 14 points behind leaders Arsenal.

The financial fortunes could be further damaged in the next list if the club fails to finish in the top four and qualify for the financially lucrative Champions League.

According to Deloitte, the world’s 20 richest clubs saw a combined revenue rise of 8% last season to €5.4bn (£4.4bn), despite the economically tough conditions.

Bayern Munich saw the largest revenue rise, of 17% to €431.2m (£352m), compared to the previous year.

Six English clubs were listed in the top 30 clubs globally, but only Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool saw revenue increases.

Liverpool, despite increasing its revenue by 9% in 2012-13, still fell out of the top 10 to 12th spot. The club had been in the top 10 rankings throughout the 21st century.

A total of seven of the top 20 clubs are sponsored by airlines based in the Middle East.

The list has been compiled annually by the sport business group of the accountancy firm since 1999-97.

It said all clubs in the top 30 of the list now have annual revenues above €100m. In the first year of rankings only Manchester Unitd had that honour.

Market watchers are now waiting to see what, if any, impact the list and Wednesday night’s loss to Sunderland may have.

Earlier this month, it was reported that the value of the club had seen a drop of around £250m on the New York Stock Exchange since Moyes took over as manager.