It is produced annually by the professional services firm Deloitte and released in early February of each year, describing the season most recently finished.
Manchester City, Borussia Dortmund and Napoli continued their meteoric rises up the table.
[29] The total revenue of the 20 richest clubs in the footballing world was over a record €3.73 billion.
No side could displace Real Madrid, who remain top of football's financial rankings for the third year running after seeing their revenues leap 20% to €351.8 million during the 2006–07 season.
Barcelona gained four places in the ranking for this year, making the two richest clubs both from Spain.
Portugal's Benfica is the third club from the Iberian Peninsula among the top 20 in the world, after Spain's Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Three clubs that had appeared in the previous season's top twenty (Marseille, Rangers, and Aston Villa) were replaced by Lyon, Everton, and Valencia.
[42] According to 12-month average exchange rate (1 July 1996 to 30 June 1997 / £1 = €1.323458) [43] Record growth in Europe's top five leagues boosted revenue in the continent's football industry by 4 percent to an all-time high of 16.3 billion euros (£13.7 billion/$23.8 billion) in 2009-10.
The "Big Five" had total revenue of 8.4 billion euros, a 5 percent increase over 2008–09, according to Deloitte.
[44] In addition to that a total of €754.1m was distributed to clubs participating in the 2008–09 UEFA Champions League, with the two finalists, Barcelona and Manchester United, receiving the largest amounts.