Manchester United to lose £21m if they fail to qualify for Champions League

Manchester United will lose £21million over the next eight years, if they fail to qualify for the Champions League for the second consecutive year.


This was confirmed after the Premier League club, released their quarterly figures on Wednesday. Due to the pound weakening against the dollar post-Brexit, their overall debt rose 18% to £337million.

However, United will take a hit on their record £750million kit deal with Adidas, if they finish outside the top four again.

The Red Devils finished fifth last season under Louis van Gaal.

“There is a clause in the Adidas contract that if we are missing from the Champions League for two years in a row, there is a 30 per cent reduction of the following year’s receipt,” Cliff Baty, United’s chief financial officer, said.

“So what that really means is that if we did miss out again, we would see 30 per cent of the future annual payment reduced.

“For example, if we received £70m, 30 per cent of that would be £21m, that we would not receive. But that is spread over the remaining terms of the contract.

“So in actual accounting terms and recognition terms, if we do miss out this year, we would get a £2m hit over the 10 year contract, but of course this is year two of the contract, so we’d have a catch-up this year.

“So broadly, we would have a £4m reduction in the revenues in this current year, and then we would have a £2m reduction in revenues every year going on from then.”