What is the value of a single football game? If you ask a romantic fan, he will say that some games are invaluable, like derbies for example. If you ask Massimiliano Allegri, instead, he will likely answer in a different way.

His team - Milan - is about to play the second leg of the Champions League playoffs against PSV Eindhoven, after a 1-1 draw in the Netherlands last week. Should the rossoneri fail to beat PSV or to draw with less than one goal apiece in regulation, they would be eliminated from the Champions League, and would participate to the UEFA Europa League. Well, considering that the old UEFA Cup is the only European trophy missing in the self-proclaimed “Most successful Club’s” honors, this could even be a good thing, right? Wrong. Elimination from the CL would only have enormous, negative repercussions on the Milanese club, and to understand how they should only open the window and take a peek at their nerazzurri cousins on the other side of the Naviglio, who were forced to sell most of their top players due to unbearable costs, and after two years with no Cups are still trying to rebuild.

To better understand the difference, in terms of value, between the Champions League and Europa League, and therefore the consequences of a negative result tonight, let’s take the revenue details from the official UEFA website: € 1.285 bn is the monumental gross amount available for clubs participating to the most prestigious competition (€40 M per club on average) for 2013, whilst the total gross income for EL clubs is “only” € 225M (€4 M per club). Both incomes are made up of two parts: a fixed amount, based on football results, and a variable amount, represented by the market pool.    

                         

 

You can see that the mere participation to the Champions League with five losses and one win (€9.6M), would earn Milan almost as much money as a victorious campaign of the Europa League (€9.9M).

If we add the market pool to the equation, the difference is even bigger. The market pool size is based on the size of the national TV-right market (in this case the Italian TV market) for European competitions, and amounts to €81M for the CL (between two or, if Milan goes through, three clubs) and €17M for the EL (for two, three of four clubs, depending on Milan and Udinese). These sums are distributed to the clubs:

• 50% based on the ranking of the team in its national league (for example in this case Juve will have a greater share than Napoli and Milan);
• 50% based on the number of games played in the competition.
  
  

In other words, to make it simple, a successful EL campaign would earn Milan approximately €16M, whilst a successful CL campaign (for example quarter finals) around €42M. A negative EL campaign could be worth less than €6M, whilst the worst case scenario in case of CL participation is approximately €25M.

So, what is the value of a single football game, Mr. Allegri? The answer, for the club, is “between 20 and 30 million euros”, which translates to 10% of the total revenues. For the fans is the possibility of seeing some new, possibly top, players in the red and black jersey, after an unusually silent transfer window. For the coach, this game is worth a big part of his future at the San Siro.
Not exactly your ordinary midsummer friendly.