Manchester United Unseat Real Madrid As World's Richest Club

For the first time in 11 years Manchester United are back at the top of the table, I didn't realise it had been so long since Sir Alex Ferguson left Old Trafford to be honest. Of course it's not the Premier League table, that's still a way off, but instead Deloitte's World Football Money League.

Accounting firm Deloitte have put together their Football Money League for the 20th time and for the first time in 11 years United top the table after dislodging Real Madrid who had been sitting pretty for the entire decade.

The Old Trafford clubs revenue for 2016 was £515 million with Barcelona taking second spot with £463.8 million just ahead of their fierce rivals and the former number one's Real Madrid, who made only £100k less.

United's record breaking revenue is up around £120 million from the previous year when the Red Devils were in third place behind their two Spanish rivals.

You might have thought that United's place as world number one would be obvious because of the Premier League's recent new TV deal that makes most of the English clubs able to pay bigger transfer fees and wages than their continental neighbours but that doesn't tell the full story.

According to Deloitte the television deals only make up 27% of the clubs revenue whilst matchday money, ticket sales, programmes, corporate boxes etc, makes up 20% whilst commercial deals make up the majority 53%.

The club initially revealed their record breaking revenue in September with Ed Woodward saying, "Our record Fiscal 2016 financial performance reflects the continued underlying strength of the business and the club is on target to achieve record revenues in 2017, even without a contribution from the Champions League.

"This strong financial performance has enabled us to invest in our squad, team management and facilities to position us to challenge for, and win, trophies in the coming years."

Revenue is only half the battle for United and the club also announced record operating profits of £68.9 million, and that was despite the sacking of Louis van Gaal and the £8.4 million paid to him and his staff as compensation.

However not everything is rosy for United's finances as still a lot of money is going out of the club to the Glazer's and the debt that the club's owners put onto the team 12 years ago.

When the Americans brought the club in 2005 they had to borrow £558.9 million against the club which had been debt free as a PLC before they came along, much to the anger of many fans.

In 2010, because of interest payments, the clubs debt had risen to £800 million but due to refinancing over the years since, with shares now available on the New York Stock Exchange, that has dramatically come down. According to Sky Sports the debt stood at £260.9m as of the end of last season, an increase of £5.7 million from the previous year.

As per this brilliant video from uMAXit Football though the Glazer's debt might not be as big a stumbling block for the 13 time Premier League winners as it once was:

The increase was due to the pounds fall against the US Dollar and Deloitte warned that Brexit and the pounds continued struggle could cause United to lose the top spot on their Money League.

As per the Independent the report that named United as the richest club in the world also warned "'the weakening of the pound relative to the euro following the UK's decision to leave the European Union' will make it 'challenging' for the club to do the same next year."

Dan Jones, partner in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, also said that lack of Champions League football means that despite United's "phenomenal growth" in commercial sales they could be overtaken by Barca and Real again next year adding, "They'll face strong competition from FC Barcelona and Real Madrid to retain the top spot in next year's edition, due to the lack of Champions League football, the weakening of the pound against the euro and, over the longer term, as other clubs enter the commercial market demanding similar deals, using United as the precedent."

Despite spending £89 million on Paul Pogba and another £60 million on Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Eric Bailly, as well as Zlatan Ibrahimovic's contract, it looks like spending is likely to continue at Old Trafford.

Commercial deals continue to roll in to the club with 25 official Global partners named on their website, from 20th Century Fox and Uber. A further 11 regional partners are also named, a majority the Far East.

With Champions League money potentially to come for next season and more tv money also likely in the next few years it's no surprise that once again Jose Mourinho's team are being linked with a 100 million euro move for Antoine Griezmann and a £70 million offer for Monaco's Bernardo Silva.

Come this time next year it's very possible that United will be back down in third on Deloitte's list but for now they can enjoy being top of the table, they'd happily swap their position if they're top of the Premier League in January 2018!