Double MFF money in the Europa League against a league conference
Malmö FF has a lot to play for against Sivasspor.
Now it turns out that the Europa League offers twice as much as the MFF Conference League.
– It ensures our investment and development in the future, says Niklas Karlin, CEO of MFF.
There was some opinion that it made no difference financially for Swedish clubs to go to the Conference League instead of the Europa League.
But Uefaranken, who is an expert on this and blogs at fotbolskane.se and fotbollthlm.se, can now show it to Malmo FF, there is a big difference. The MFF will get twice the money (90 million at least) if they beat Sivasspor in Turkey on Thursday and advance to the European League (EL) than if they had to settle in the Conference League (ECL), which they are already ready for.
There is not much difference in starting money in the group stage: 37 million in EL. and 31 million in ECL.
But there are three other pots that are distributed between the clubs: the ten-year pot, the market pot, and the winning draw.
The utensils mentioned are not first identified, but are distributed later based on various criteria. But the ten-year bet benefits clubs like MFF, which has played relatively a lot in Europe in the past ten years and, according to Uefaranken’s estimates, will give MFF up to 22.5 million in EL compared to just 9.5 million in ECL.
“Delivery that we have succeeded in establishing ourselves in Europe”
Niklas Karlin, CEO of MFF, on the club’s success in the European qualifiers in recent years, the basis of their lucrative 10-year bet:
– It’s perfectly in line with what we had as a goal. We will move from challenging in Europe to establishing ourselves in Europe. And that’s a testament to how well we’ve done that, given how many times we’ve played in Europe in the last 10 or 12 years.
From the market in EL, MFF receives 30 million rounds as opposed to just 3 million in ECL.
Carlnén wants to stress that neither he nor the MFF themselves have adopted or appreciated the ten-year sums and market pots.
But when the Uefa ranking adds these three pots, the difference in MFF is 45 million if you insert EL instead of ECL.
Does it matter to MFF, which has hundreds of millions of kroner “in the bank”?
– Absolutely. It’s important money for us, too. We know we won’t be able to go to Europe every year, we probably won’t get there every three years, and then we have to build vaults strong enough to meet the costs we incurred. Therefore, it is very important to compete in the European League – and the Conference League. But if we can choose the Europa League in terms of sporting and economic aspects, we will, of course. This is what guarantees our investment and development in the future.
“Malmö FF is definitely a Europa League team”
Once you’re in the group stage, of course, win prizes and bonuses add up if you’re going to advance to the playoffs, which the MFF has done two of the last three times they’ve played in the Europa League.
There are not significant differences between EL and ECL.
– If you then move out of the group stage, the upside will be much greater in the Europa League than in the conference leagues, Carlnén informs.
Here too we didn’t take into account ticket revenue, which is likely to be much greater in EL, against bigger teams, than in ECL.
Do you think the MFF should be a team in the Europa League? Did you make it “there”?
– If the Allsvenskan runner-up also qualifies for the Europa League from 2024 (as Sportbladet wrote on Tuesday), it is natural to say so. I would say that the Europa League has become a bit more difficult since the addition of the Conference League and of course the draw will be crucial in the future as well, as it happened when we had the misfortune of Granada entering the qualifiers two years ago. But I totally think Malmö FF is a team from the European League, even if there is strong opposition in the Conference League as well.