Manchester City are set to bank £95m if they can defeat Inter Milan and win their first Champions League - except the weight of pressure on Pep Guardiola’s players will be lifted slightly by the realisation that all but £4m is guaranteed before kicking a ball.
Victory in Istanbul tonight would bring their total prize money for the second treble in English football history to a little shy of an eye-watering £280m.
Guardiola’s side, a domestic double already assured, kick off against Inter Milan in the Ataturk Stadium as heavy favourites to seal a first European Cup in the club’s history.
The financial rewards are handsome - even if UEFA’s payment structure offers a greater reward for reaching the final than winning it.
All 32 group stage teams made €15.6m (£13.4m) as a base participation fee, with City’s ten-year coefficient payment this season worth an additional €28.4m (£24.4m). They made €2.8m (£2.4m) for each of their four group stage wins, €930,000 (£798,360) for their two additional draws and a €9.6m (£8.2m) top up for making it into the knockout stages.
Hammering RB Leipzig 8-1 on aggregate in the round of 16 was worth €10.6m (£9.1m), setting up a two-legged tie against Bayern Munich in which City earned €12.5m (£10.7m) more for progressing 4-1 over two legs. The semi-final defeat of Real Madrid, exorcising the demons of past failures against the Spanish giants, earned €15.5m (£13.3m). And the winner tonight will be given another cash boost of €4.5m (£3.8).
City earned an estimated £180m for winning a fifth Premier League title in six seasons and banked an additional £3.9m for defeating neighbours United in last weekend’s FA Cup final.
Earlier this week Guardiola did his best to play down expectations by saying that Inter have more historical pedigree and the key for City, who lost the 2021 final to Chelsea, will be to keep calm in the heat of battle.
“For history, they are better than us. [But] we know the final is how you behave in that specific 95 minutes, not history,” he said. “It is about what you have to do to be better than the opponent - it doesn't count what you have done in the group stages or the Premier League or the FA Cup.
“With our club, I've learnt that overexcitement doesn't suit us. We will travel there to accomplish a dream … we'll approach it as we do for every midweek Premier League match; we'll ensure the players are focused on what they have to do, nothing more than that.”
He added: “We are confident - I’m so optimistic. I'm more than calm and so grateful for what the players have done and are doing. But at the same time, I cannot deny the quality of the opponent. I have never done that and especially not in the final of the Champions League.”
Despite a dismal campaign that saw four men take charge of games, Chelsea made €80.7m (£69.3m) for their efforts in the competition. Liverpool earned €67.6m (£58m), with Tottenham Hotspur banking €55m (£47.2m).
In the Europa League there were comparatively paltry sums on offer. Manchester United made €15m (£12.8m), Arsenal banked €13.3m (£11.4m). West Ham United earned €16.4m (£14.1m) for winning the Conference League - but also secured a place in next season's Europa League.
