Richest clubs and players: the whole Ekstraklasa, excluding transfers, has revenue on a par with VfB Stuttgart

Real Madrid had around €1.16 billion in revenue in the 2024/25 season, the most in the Deloitte ranking, while Poland’s richest club, Legia, had PLN 290 million including transfers in 2025/26. Without player sales (PLN 88 million) that leaves PLN 202 million, and on that basis Lech has more. “Richest” here means the club with the highest revenue, not the highest market value or the largest profit.

The world’s richest clubs: Real Madrid ahead of Barcelona and Bayern

The Football Money League club revenue ranking is compiled by Deloitte. The 2026 edition is the 29th, was published on 22 January 2026 and covers the 2024/25 season. Revenue does not include transfer fees for players and coaches, or VAT and other sales taxes.

Real Madrid is first, with a clear lead over Barcelona. Of its €1,161 million, commercial activity brought €594 million (23% more than a year earlier) and matchday €233 million (6% less). Subtracting both components leaves about €334 million, which is attributable to broadcasting rights (this is a calculated difference; Deloitte does not report the amount separately).

Barcelona returned to the Money League podium for the first time since 2019/20. It had €975 million, 27% more than in 2023/24, although it was still playing outside Spotify Camp Nou. An important reason for the growth was the new Personal Seat Licences, which provided about €70 million as a one-off. Real Madrid introduced such licences in 2023/24, and the fall in its matchday revenue in 2024/25 resulted mainly from lower proceeds from selling them. Those €233 million are still the second-highest matchday figure in the history of the ranking.

The twenty biggest clubs had €12.4 billion between them, 11% more than in 2023/24 (€11.2 billion). Of that, matchday brought €2.4 billion, broadcasting rights €4.7 billion and commercial activity €5.3 billion. Commercial income is 48% of revenue in the top ten and 32% in the clubs ranked 11th to 20th. Nine of the twenty clubs played in the Premier League in 2024/25.

Manchester United fell to 8th place, the lowest in Money League history, even though its revenue rose from €771 million to €793 million: matchday and commercial together brought €75 million more, but broadcasting income fell by €52 million because of results on the pitch. For the first time in the ranking’s history, Liverpool is the richest English club (5th place). Its revenue rose to €836 million thanks to broadcasting income, up 34% after the return to the Champions League, and commercial revenue, up 7%.

In 2015/16 the average club in the top ten had €523 million, and in 2024/25 already €837 million, which is 60% more. The clubs ranked 11th to 20th grew by nearly 84%, from €219 million to €404 million, mainly on broadcasting rights: these give them almost half of their revenue (49%), against about one third in the top ten.

There are no Polish clubs in the top twenty, nor in places 21 to 30. Brentford, 30th in the ranking, had €206.0 million in revenue.

There are two newcomers in the twenty. VfB Stuttgart (18th) returned to the Money League for the first time since 2009/10, and its matchday revenue grew by almost 90%, to €70 million (from €37 million a year earlier), mainly thanks to playing in the Champions League and additional income from VIP areas after the refurbishment of the MHP Arena. Benfica (19th) appeared in the ranking for the first time since 2005/06 and is the first club from outside the five biggest leagues since 2020/21, when Zenit St Petersburg was there.

Ekstraklasa’s richest clubs: Legia with transfers, Lech without them

The Polish figures come from the fourth edition of Grant Thornton’s “Finansowa Ekstraklasa” report, prepared together with Ekstraklasa SA and the clubs. It covers the season from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026. Total revenue is revenue from core activity (matchday, centrally sold media and marketing rights, and commercial activity) plus revenue from player sales. The report does not count clubs’ recapitalisations (share capital increases) as revenue. Commercial revenue, however, includes among other things subsidies from city budgets.

Legia has the highest total revenue (PLN 290.46 million) thanks to PLN 88.35 million from player sales. Excluding transfers Lech leads: PLN 233.16 million against Legia’s PLN 202.11 million. Jagiellonia is third in total revenue and had the highest net profit in the Grant Thornton table: PLN 71.08 million. As recently as 2022/23 the club’s budget was, according to the report, PLN 44.9 million, and in the latest season transfer revenue alone (PLN 64.94 million) was higher than that.

The difference between Lech and Legia shows in the sources of revenue excluding transfers. Lech had PLN 91.7 million from commercial activity (according to the report, also from stadium management), PLN 79.6 million from media and marketing rights (including PLN 41 million from UEFA) and PLN 61.9 million from matchday, and received nearly PLN 58 million from UEFA in total: it played in the qualifiers for the Champions League and the Europa League, and then in the league phase of the Conference League, where it reached the round of 16. Legia started with the Europa League qualifiers and finished in the league phase of the Conference League. It had PLN 88.9 million from commercial activity, PLN 51.6 million from rights (including PLN 34 million from UEFA) and PLN 61.6 million from matchday, and its revenue excluding transfers fell by PLN 18.7 million. Lech’s rose by PLN 124.9 million.

Widzew, seventh in the revenue ranking (it finished the league season in 14th place), has PLN 66.41 million in revenue excluding transfers and a net result of minus PLN 92.23 million. Its wages together with player amortisation reached 150% of total revenue, but the owner put PLN 143.6 million into the club in a share capital increase, and with it the ratio is 48%. We show how wages relate to income at the clubs in our overview of footballers’ earnings.

Eighteen clubs together had PLN 1,587 million in revenue, PLN 317 million (almost 25%) more than a year earlier. Player sales brought PLN 301 million, 37% more, and 85% of that amount (PLN 256.3 million) came from transfers abroad. Commercial revenue grew by PLN 122.0 million to PLN 529.7 million, and matchday by PLN 63.5 million to PLN 278.1 million. Matchday income depends on attendance and ticket prices, which we compare in our article on Ekstraklasa stadiums.

14 of the 17 clubs for which the report has data from both seasons increased their revenue. The biggest jump was recorded by Lech (up PLN 103.0 million), ahead of Legia (up PLN 59.6 million), Górnik Zabrze (up PLN 53.5 million, from PLN 57.5 million to PLN 111.0 million, almost double) and Jagiellonia (up PLN 40.5 million). Revenue fell at Piast (by PLN 1.9 million), Cracovia (by PLN 4.9 million) and Raków, which lost PLN 19.6 million, mainly because of much lower transfer revenue. Six clubs exceeded PLN 100 million in total revenue, and Lech and Legia were clearly above PLN 200 million.

Clubs’ revenue also includes money from the league’s central pool, but that is only one component: who received how much of it is described in our overview of Ekstraklasa payouts and Polish Cup prize money. Income from playing in Europe is a separate topic, which we have collected in our article on UEFA money for Polish clubs.

Deloitte covers the 2024/25 season and excludes transfers, Grant Thornton covers 2025/26, so for the comparison with Europe we use the “excluding transfers” column.

The Ekstraklasa as a whole had PLN 1,286 million in revenue excluding transfers, which is about €293 million at the NBP rate of 29 October 2026 (PLN 4.3951 per euro). That is roughly what VfB Stuttgart, 18th in the Deloitte ranking, had (€296.3 million), and more than 19th-placed Benfica (€283.4 million). Deloitte converts amounts in other currencies at the average rate over the 12 months of the club’s financial year. At the NBP average rate for the 2025/26 season (PLN 4.2460 per euro, an average of 251 quotations from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026) the league would have about €303 million, a little more than Stuttgart. Chelsea, tenth in the Deloitte ranking, had €584.1 million, or about PLN 2.57 billion. That is about twice the revenue of the entire Polish league excluding transfers. Real Madrid’s revenue, PLN 5.10 billion, is about 25 times larger than Legia’s revenue excluding transfers.

Ekstraklasa revenue since 2014: more than three times higher, sponsors contribute the most

Revenue of Ekstraklasa clubs from core activity, that is excluding transfers, grew from PLN 424 million in 2014 to PLN 1,286 million in 2025/26, which is more than three times as much. Last season the increase was 22%, after a slowdown to 9% in 2024/25.

The biggest segment is commercial revenue, mainly from sponsorship: 41% of revenue from core activity. Centralised media and marketing rights account for nearly 37% (34% of that amount comes from UEFA), and matchday for almost 22%. Last season matchday and commercial revenue grew by almost 30%, media rights by almost 12%. As much as 44% of matchday revenue was provided by Legia and Lech, mainly thanks to playing in European competitions.

Since 2014 matchday has grown fastest: from PLN 71 million to PLN 278 million, almost fourfold. Media and marketing rights rose from PLN 131 million to PLN 478 million (more than 3.6 times), and commercial revenue from PLN 222 million to PLN 530 million (about 2.4 times), so its share of the total fell from 52% to 41%.

Grant Thornton counts transfers separately because they are very volatile. Over the last six seasons transfer revenue averaged about PLN 202 million a year, and the last three seasons were above that average. In 2025/26 it accounted for 19% of total revenue, 1.7 percentage points more than a year earlier. The report cautions that, unlike the other revenue sources, transfers should not be assumed to keep growing systematically, because they depend, among other things, on the zloty-euro exchange rate.

On net transfers, that is after deducting spending on new players, Legia (a balance of plus PLN 59.2 million) and Jagiellonia (plus PLN 54.1 million) earned the most. Widzew did worst, with a balance of minus PLN 99.1 million. According to the report this is above all the result of deliberately strengthening the squad: the club kept important players while also spending a lot on new ones, which the recapitalisation by its new owner made possible.

The world’s highest-paid footballers: Ronaldo earns about twice as much as Messi

The list of the highest-paid footballers was compiled by Forbes (author: Hank Tucker, October 2026). These are estimates, not signed contracts: Forbes uses public databases, including Capology, and information from people in the industry.

The ten together earn about $942 million. Cristiano Ronaldo, with $300 million, earns roughly twice as much as Lionel Messi ($145 million). Messi earns more off the pitch ($75 million) than on it ($70 million). Sadio Mané earns almost all of it on the pitch: $50 million of $54 million. Real Madrid has three players on the list, Spain’s La Liga four in total, Al Nassr two. There is no Pole in this ten.

Ronaldo and Messi earn $445 million together, almost half of the ten’s total. That total is $3 million lower than a year ago ($945 million), although most of the players who stayed on the list earn more. Karim Benzema dropped off the list (about $104 million a year ago); after his contract was terminated in August he is a free agent, and Kane took his place. Lamine Yamal has $55 million against $43 million a year earlier, after new sponsorship deals, among others with American Eagle, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.

Salah left Liverpool for Trabzonspor, where according to Forbes he signed a two-year contract that also guarantees him 20% of royalties from sales of club merchandise related to him. One Premier League player remained in the ten, Haaland. So for the first time since the ranking debuted in 2005, the ten does not include at least two players from that league.

Forbes counts “on the pitch” as base salary, bonuses and, in some cases, image rights agreements with the club, and “off the pitch” as income from advertising, licences, appearances and memorabilia, plus profits from companies in which the player has a significant stake. It does not deduct taxes or agents’ fees and does not include transfer fees. For Messi and Ronaldo it believes that club or league sponsors top up the contracts, and it includes that value in the “on the pitch” amount; in Messi’s case the pay is also said to include a share in the revenue of the league’s partners, Adidas and Apple TV.

For scale: on the pitch Ronaldo gets $250 million, or about PLN 987 million. That is more than three times Legia’s total revenue (PLN 290.46 million, 3.4 times), although one amount is an estimate of one player’s earnings and the other is the revenue of a whole club.

Poles: what is known about the pay of Lewandowski and Ekstraklasa players

Robert Lewandowski does not appear on the Forbes list. According to DAZN reports, cited on 28 July 2026 by the World Soccer Talk website, he receives a base salary of €15 million net a year at Chicago Fire. The contract runs until 30 June 2028, €30 million is guaranteed, and bonuses could raise the annual amount to €20 million. His agent Pini Zahavi says it is the second-highest contract in MLS after Messi’s.

These are press reports, not an official publication of the club or the league, and they concern net amounts. Forbes gives pre-tax amounts, so the two figures should not be compared directly. We describe the contract details and the striker’s goals in our article on Lewandowski at Chicago Fire, and we write separately about how much footballers earn.

The earnings of individual Ekstraklasa players are not published. What is publicly available is the clubs’ total wage costs. According to Grant Thornton, the first team and coaching staff account for an average of 78% of those costs, administration 14%, and the second team and youth teams 8%. More than PLN 60 million a year is spent on wages, excluding player amortisation, by four clubs: Legia (more than PLN 100 million), Widzew, Lech and Raków. Most of the others fall in the range of PLN 20 to 50 million per season.

Since 2025/26 a UEFA mechanism has been in force that limits wage spending to 70% of revenue for clubs playing in European competitions. Grant Thornton calculates a similar ratio for all clubs in the league: the share of wages together with player amortisation in total revenue. According to the report, the only difference from UEFA’s methodology is that it includes all wages at the club, whereas UEFA counts only the wages of the first team, the head coach and any obligations towards former coaches or loaned players. On that basis 11 clubs were below 70%, the same number as a year earlier, and lowest was Jagiellonia, at about 32%.

The next edition of the Football Money League should cover the 2025/26 season, the same as the Grant Thornton report, and only then will it be possible to compare the two leagues for the same year.

Sources: Deloitte Football Money League 2026 (Deloitte shows places 1 to 20 as a graphic, so we give the exact amounts for those clubs from the table reprinted by GOAL; the amounts for Stuttgart and Benfica are also confirmed by ESPN); Grant Thornton’s “Finansowa Ekstraklasa 2025/2026” report; Forbes, Australian edition, “Meet the world’s highest-paid soccer players in 2026” (Hank Tucker); DAZN via World Soccer Talk; NBP average rates: table 211/A/NBP/2026 of 29 October 2026 (euro PLN 4.3951, dollar PLN 3.9473) and the 2025/26 season average (euro PLN 4.2460). Conversions into zlotys and euros are our own calculation. As of 29 October 2026. Deloitte · GOAL · ESPN · Grant Thornton · Forbes · World Soccer Talk.