GENEVA (AP) — In a record result for European soccer, top-tier clubs combined to make a first-time profit of 600 million euros ($694 million) last year.
UEFA says its research of 711 clubs’ financial accounts ending in 2017 showed they turned around a 300-million euro loss ($347 million) the previous year.
Their total revenue of 20.1 billion euros ($23.2 billion) extended a trend of annual rises at around 10 percent.
UEFA says 27 of 54 top-tier divisions were profitable, up from eight in 2011 when it began monitoring accounts of all clubs entering the Champions League and Europa League.
UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin says: “Thanks to Financial Fair Play, European football is healthier than ever before.
Ceferin says monitoring “provided the platform for clubs to control their costs and pay their debts.”
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