UEFA publishes annual European club benchmarking report

For the eleventh time, UEFA has published, in almost unchanged form, aggregate figures for European elite football, known as the Benchmark Report. Unfortunately, in contrast to the extremely thorough, valuable and useful professional material produced by UEFA, some related statistics and articles which have previously appeared in the domestic media have contained significant errors or omissions.

The importance of such mistakes is exemplified by players' wages, for instance. In the process of referring to UEFA, certain areas of the domestic press have quoted exaggerated amounts without seeming to have sufficiently scrutinised or checked them first. Compared to these supposedly sensational multi-million salaries, the 2018/19 season, as examined by UEFA, saw the average basic salary actually paid to top-tier footballers stand at 1.63m HUF (approx. 4,800 Euro) per player per month.

The MLSZ therefore recommends that those who wish to know the true evolution, data, comparative trends and economic background of European football consult the original UEFA material, which is available at the end of this article.

Those interested in the economic background of Hungarian football, whether or not it is based on the UEFA report, would like to draw attention to the fact that UEFA compiles its own study on the basis of the public reports produced by the company which owns each club. These are also available upon request and the MLSZ's own figures are readily available for consultation by journalists and self-proclaimed sports economists in order to avoid the publication of incorrect data and conclusions.

The full report is available here: https://bit.ly/36YlMvv