Only €2.8m of Napoli's €43.9m Champions League income came

Only €2.8m of Napoli's €43.9m Champions League income came from results

Halfway through the league phase, Inter are the only Italian club among the top ten earners with €60.7m. Napoli are well behind, and almost everything they have banked is simply for taking part.

by Gennaro SanninoSaturday 7 November, 22:24 CET· 1 hour ago

Il Maradona pieno in una notte di Champions League

Il Maradona in una notte europea — Foto: Gaetano Capaldo · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0

After four matchdays of the Champions League, Napoli have earned around €43.9m. Look closer and the figure means less than it seems.

Of that total, €18.62m is the participation bonus that every club in the league phase receives. Around €22.5m comes from the "Value" pillar, which is made up of the market pool and the historical ranking. What the team has actually earned on the pitch in four games comes to €2.8m.

The results explain why. Napoli have won once in four games, 4-3 against Bodø/Glimt at the Maradona. They lost 0-1 at home to Arsenal, 3-1 away at Villarreal and 4-1 at the Dragão against Porto on Wednesday 4 November. That makes three points, six goals scored and 11 conceded. Each win in the league phase is worth €2.1m, and the sums are not hard to do.

Inter are €16.8m ahead

Paris Saint-Germain top the earnings table with €73.5m. Behind them are Bayern Munich (€68.7m), Liverpool and Real Madrid (€68.6m each), Manchester City (€67.8m), Arsenal (€65.9m), Borussia Dortmund (€62m), Inter (€60.7m), Barcelona (€59.6m) and Manchester United (€57.7m).

Inter are the only Italian club in that group, and they have €16.8m more than Napoli. To reach the top ten, Napoli would need another €13.8m, the gap to Manchester United. Napoli's "Value" share is also slightly lower than Inter's, because of the historical and commercial weightings UEFA uses to share out the money. For now, Napoli are the furthest behind of Italy's big clubs.

The accounting is not what hurts, though. The participation bonus and the "Value" pillar together make up more than €41m of the €43.9m. The part that depends on results is stuck at €2.8m. To us, that is the most honest picture of this campaign: Napoli are in the competition, but so far they have earned very little in Europe through their own efforts.

Last season still weighs

The comparison is a recent one. Last season Napoli finished the league phase in 30th place, with one win, two draws and five defeats. That run included the 6-2 in Eindhoven, still the worst European defeat in the club's history. Four matchdays into this edition, they again have only one win.

The fanbase still feels Napoli are being tested in Europe. The real question is not the money left on the table. It is that, halfway through, this campaign already looks a lot like the last one.

Lazio come next in Serie A on Sunday 8 November, which is a separate story. The next Champions League game is on Tuesday 24 November at 21:00 CET (20:00 UK, 15:00 ET) against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium. City are fifth in the earnings table with €67.8m. A win there would be worth €2.1m. More importantly, it would stop Napoli going into the final matchdays with their fate already decided.