Welcome to the Deloitte Football Money League 2006. This is the ninth year of the publication, profiling the largest clubs in the world’s most popular sport. A number of methods may be used to determine the size of a club – including measures of fanbase, attendances, TV audiences, or on pitch success. However, for the purposes of this publication, we look at the best publicly available measure of ‘financial muscle’: revenue from day to day football business operations. We only rank the clubs on that money coming in. We do not consider a club’s budget for outgoings or what someone might pay to buy outright, or invest in, a club.

The Deloitte Football Money League is the most contemporary and reliable analysis of clubs’ relative financial performance and is released less than nine months after the end of last season, as soon as all relevant clubs’ accounts are available to us. Football remains a growth sport, especially at the highest level. The continued high level of interest in the sport – both public and commercial – is reflected by another year of strong growth. In our first Money League in 1996/97 the 20 clubs’ combined revenue was €1.2 billion. This year, collective revenues of the Top 20 clubs broke the €3 billion barrier for the first time after growing by 6%.

In this year’s edition, in addition to our usual profiles of the top 20 clubs and their revenue sources, we take a five-year view of the Deloitte Football Money League clubs and also look at how Real Madrid has captured the top spot.

The Deloitte Football Money League was compiled by Dan Jones, Rich Parkes and Austin Houlihan of the Sports Business Group. Our thanks go to all those who have assisted us, inside and outside the Deloitte international network.

To register for your free copy of the report please click here 'Football Money League 2006'.

Read the related Deloitte press release: Real Madrid shoots to the top.

Football Money League in the press
Beckham drives Madrid to top of money league - Guardian
Real knock United off top of 'rich list' - Daily Telegraph
Real's galactic investment pays off - Daily Telegraph