Chelsea top UEFA prize money list with $126m
and four of city rival Sevilla.
Manuel Pellegrini’s Betis had been near the top most of the season but lost ground recently as they focused on the final stages of the Copa del Rey. They were coming off two losses and two draws in their last four league matches, including a 2-1 home defeat against Barcelona after conceding four minutes into stoppage time.
Betis last played in the Champions League in 2005-06, after it finished fourth in the Spanish league. It ended sixth in the league in two of the last four seasons, with its lone title coming in 1934-35.
Granada defeated mid-table Athletic Bilbao 1-0 to move five points from the relegation zone ahead of the other mid-week games.
Álex Collado scored a 35th-minute winner for 16th-place Granada, which were coming off a 6-2 victory at 18th-place Mallorca.
Granada are unbeaten in four matches, since a 4-1 home loss to Levante in April.
Eighth-place Athletic played a man down from the 85th after Mikel Vesga was sent off with a second yellow card.
GENEVA, May 11, (AP) :Champions League winners Chelsea earned nearly 120 million euros ($126.5 million) from UEFA last season, topping the prize money list for European clubs published Wednesday.
That was just ahead of beaten finalists Manchester City, which received just over 119 million euros ($125.6 million) from a total fund of nearly 1.9 billion euros ($2 billion) shared by the 32 Champions League clubs. That total has risen to more than 2 billion euros ($2.1 billion) for the current and next two seasons.
Semifinalists Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain each got almost 110 million euros ($116 million), the only other clubs to earn a nine-figure sum from UEFA.
Chelsea’s total was at least 35 million euros ($37 million) more than Barcelona and Juventus, who lost in the round of 16 and then helped in the failed attempt to launch a Super League, which was designed to be more lucrative for top clubs.
Barcelona and Juventus were key leaders of the project which saw 12 elite clubs try to break away from UEFA control to create their own competition.
The UEFA list shows Barcelona earned less than 85 million euros ($90 million) and Juventus got less than 83 million euros ($88 million).
Barcelona, Juventus and Madrid are still pursuing a legal case against UEFA at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
The nine other Super League members, including Chelsea and Man City, quickly renounced the project amid fierce public backlash, leading to its collapse within 48 hours.
The lowest payment to a Champions League club were 18.45 million euros ($19.5 million) to Hungarian champions Ferencváros, which lost five of their six group-stage games.
Ferencváros received just 1.1 million euros ($1.16 million) from UEFA’s 585-million euro ($618 million) fund rewarding clubs for their historical record in European competitions. In contrast, 13-time European champions Real Madrid were paid 35.5 million euros ($37.5 million) from that fund.
Those “coefficient” payments began in 2018 after pressure on UEFA from the European Club Association, which was then strongly influenced by the clubs who later tried to create the Super League.
The wealth gap between the Champions League and second-tier Europa League was again clear. The Europa League’s prize fund for clubs was 541 million euros ($571 million) - about 28% of the Champions League sum.
Europa League winners Villarreal got 33.1 million euros ($35 million) and the team they beat in the semifinals, Arsenal, earned just under 30 million euros ($31.6 million).
Manchester United, which lost the Europa League final after placing third in their Champions League group, received a total of 79.6 million euros ($83.6 million) from both competitions.
From the Champions League fund, 8 million euros ($8.4 million) was paid to the ECA, which represents nearly 250 clubs who play in UEFA competitions.