Two seasons into the restructured UEFA Champions League, the league phase has moved beyond debate around its potential impact and into observable reality. That applies not only to the competition’s entertainment value, but also to its effects on participating clubs. The 2025/26 season provides a second full dataset to assess how the new format connects sporting outcomes with financial metrics across Europe’s elite club competition.
The replacement of the traditional group stage with a single 36-team league table has not altered the underlying financial hierarchy of European football. Elite clubs continue to dominate progression and earnings. However, the league phase has changed where pressure accumulates and how it is experienced. Qualification and elimination are now commonly decided on the final matchday, concentrating sporting jeopardy and attention across a wider set of fixtures, creating unpredictability that was simply not possible with the old format. Marginal sporting outcomes, therefore, carry greater financial weight, with prize money shaped heavily by league position, though the competition’s established faces still bring some advantages with them.
These dynamics raise important questions about how the financial impact of the league phase differs for clubs of varying size and geography, from elite commercial powers to participants from smaller markets, where the same sporting outcome can translate into very different financial effects.
This article reviews the 2025/26 league phase through a combined financial and sporting lens, focusing on estimated prize money distribution, the financial weight of Champions League income relative to club revenues, and the relationship between squad value and league phase performance.
League phase prize money distribution
The revamped UEFA Champions League distribution model reflects a deliberate balance between broader access and performance-based rewards. While all 36 clubs receive a guaranteed €18.62m starting fee, the allocation of prize money remains heavily influenced by results and the value pillar, which is linked to historical European performance and club coefficient, allowing consistently successful clubs to retain a larger share.
At the upper end, established names still account for the largest prize money totals. FC Bayern München, Manchester City FC, Liverpool FC, and Arsenal FC have each exceeded €96m in estimated earnings following the completion of the league phase, based on research from Swiss Ramble. However, high earnings are not confined exclusively to the biggest clubs. Clubs such as Sporting CP, who finished seventh, and Atalanta BC, who finished fifteenth, sit relatively close to the traditional giants, highlighting the league phase’s capacity to reward sustained on-pitch performance across the eight matches.
Prize money outcomes remain relatively compressed among clubs sharing the same competitive outcome, whether direct qualification, play-off entry, or elimination, even when league phase positions differ materially. Real Madrid CF, who narrowly missed the top eight, earned an estimated €81m, while SL Benfica, who secured a place in the top 24 with a dramatic goal from the goalkeeper, Anatoliy Trubin, in the dying moments of the last matchday, earned approximately €54m. Despite markedly different league table finishes, the resulting €27m gap demonstrates that clubs advancing from the league phase via the same path can receive broadly similar financial rewards.
Even at the lower end of the distribution, prize money remains transformative. The lowest earners still exceeded €20m, a level of income that can significantly influence wage structures, transfer strategies, and longer-term planning for clubs from smaller leagues.
The financial impact of Champions League prize money
Assessing prize money in isolation only tells part of the story. Set against clubs’ latest available total operating revenues, the league phase presents sharp differences in financial exposure across Europe, with Champions League income acting as a supplement for some clubs and a central revenue driver for others.
For the biggest clubs, prize money complements diversified revenue models rather than reshaping them. Real Madrid CF, FC Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain FC, Manchester City FC, and FC Bayern München all recorded ratios below 15%.
By contrast, AS Monaco FC, Union Saint-Gilloise, and Olympiacos FC each generated prize money equivalent to more than half of their most recently available operating revenue. At this level, Champions League participation becomes a defining component of annual financial performance. At the extreme end of the distribution, European prize money functions as a multiplier. Qarabağ FK and FK Bodø/Glimt have generated prize money totals exceeding their latest available annual operating revenue. While this creates scope for accelerated development, it also heightens financial risk. Heavy reliance on European qualification increases exposure to abrupt budget contraction if participation is not sustained, encouraging short-term decision-making and volatility.
This dynamic is contributing to domestic dominance, particularly in smaller leagues, where a single European campaign can alter competitive balance and entrench persistent title winners. Similar effects can also be observed in larger leagues, where repeated access to Champions League revenues reinforces long-term financial superiority, limits upward mobility for challengers, and, in some cases, concentrates title outcomes amongst the same clubs season after season.
Squad value and league phase performance
Comparing final league phase positions with squad market values provides a reference for how closely sporting outcomes align with underlying financial strength. As expected, clubs with higher-valued squads generally finished higher in the table.
Seven of the nine most valuable squads finished inside the top nine. Arsenal FC topped the league phase with the second-most valuable squad (€1.43bn), while Real Madrid CF, who boast the highest-valued squad in the competition (€1.46bn), finished ninth and narrowly missed direct qualification.
Seeding broadly remained a useful indicator of performance, with eight of the top ten finishers drawn from Pot 1 and all nine Pot 1 clubs finishing inside the top 16, underscoring how pre-season hierarchy continues to shape outcomes even under the new format.
Sporting CP stand out as an overperformer relative to financial scale. With a squad valued at €432m, the Lisbon-based club finished seventh. This result also diverged sharply from pre-season market expectations, with aggregated bookmaker odds placing Sporting well outside the top eight.
At the other end of the table, financial constraints continued to impose clear limits, but with notable exceptions. Qarabağ FK and FK Bodø/Glimt both progressed into the knockout play-offs despite possessing two of the lowest-valued squads in the competition. Even accounting for likely increases in the values of several standout performers, the total market values of their squads remain well below that of many clubs they ultimately finished above in the league table.
Several financially dominant clubs underperformed relative to squad value. Current champions Paris Saint-Germain FC and Serie A champions SSC Napoli both finished below valuation-based expectations. Napoli’s exit was particularly notable, as they were the only club not seeded in Pots 3 or 4 to fail to be eliminated in the league phase.
Viewed alongside the 2024/25 season, a consistent pattern is emerging. While the overall hierarchy remains intact and elite clubs are rarely threatened with early elimination, direct qualification to the top eight is no longer assured by financial strength alone, as illustrated also last season when Real Madrid, FC Bayern München and Manchester City missed the top eight, while lower-valued teams such as LOSC Lille and Aston Villa FC progressed directly.
Competitive dynamics after two league phase seasons
Two seasons into the league phase era, the Champions League’s underlying hierarchy remains broadly intact. Financial strength and squad value continue to predict progression. What has changed is when pressure is applied, with qualification and elimination increasingly decided later in the competition and by finer margins than under the group stage format.
From a competition design perspective, the league phase has largely delivered on its objective of extending competitive relevance. Only six of the 36 teams entered the final matchday with nothing left to play for, compared with 20 of 32 in the final group stage season. With 17 of 18 fixtures on the final night carrying qualification or elimination consequences, outcomes are now settled deeper into the competition rather than early in the cycle.
The financial consequences remain uneven. For the largest clubs, league phase performance fine-tunes already diversified revenue models; for others, it can materially increase wage capacity, transfer spending and domestic competitive positioning. In those cases, the challenge is one of governance and strategy: integrating a significant, and often volatile, European income stream into longer-term planning, rather than allowing short-term sporting gains to drive unsustainable decision-making.
Alongside this, the concentration of Champions League income among a small number of clubs within certain domestic leagues continues to shape competitive balance. Repeated access to European revenues can widen financial gaps between participants and their domestic peers, reinforcing dominance at league level over time. This dynamic is most visible in smaller markets but is increasingly relevant across larger leagues, where sustained European participation continues to underpin long-term competitive advantage.
Football Benchmark works with governing bodies, leagues, and competition organisers, providing independent intelligence and advisory support on competition formats, financial distribution mechanisms and the sporting and economic impact of structural reform.
