European football, the study: the €38 billion machine is creaking, half the clubs are losing money.

European football has become an industry worth over €38 billion, but behind the growth in revenues lie increasingly evident imbalances. This is the picture painted by the Boston Consulting Group's study "The Three Forces Reshaping the Beautiful Game," which identifies three factors destined to shape the future of the sport: economics, governance, and the calendar.

First of all, wealth is far from evenly distributed. The 20 highest-grossing European clubs alone generate over €11 billion, more than half the total revenue of the continent's top five leagues.

The main driver of this concentration is the growth of international television rights. The most notable example is the Premier League, whose international revenues have grown from approximately £500 million in 2010 to over £2,2 billion today. This mechanism tends to be self-sustaining: higher revenues mean greater investment in players, which increases the competitions' international appeal and generates additional revenue.

The Champions League has also strengthened its influence. The share of international rights relative to those of the five major domestic leagues has risen from around 15% in the 2016-17 season to around 20% in 2025-26.

Business growth, however, does not equate to greater financial stability. According to the study, only about half of the clubs in Europe's top division closed their financial years with a profit. The salary-to-revenue ratio in the five major leagues stood at around 64% between 2020 and 2022, compared to approximately 50% in the major North American leagues, which have salary cap systems.

The transfer market further contributes to the imbalance. In the Premier League, clubs spent approximately £5,7 billion on players in the 2022-23 season, a figure equivalent to nearly 90% of the league's total revenue. For eight out of twenty clubs, squad spending actually exceeded revenue.

This also explains the governance response. UEFA has introduced a limit that limits the amount of revenue allocated to salaries, transfer fees, and agent commissions for clubs competing in European competitions to 70%. At the same time, the phenomenon of multi-club groups is growing, which now control approximately 400 clubs worldwide.

Meanwhile, new hubs are emerging on the international scene. Saudi clubs invested nearly a billion dollars in a single transfer window, while Major League Soccer averages over 21 spectators per match. Women's soccer is also experiencing significant growth: it now generates approximately $800 million in annual revenue, and the 14 teams in the National Women's Soccer League have reached a combined valuation of $2,6 billion.

The other major issue concerns the schedule. The expansion of the Champions League, the creation of the Conference League, and the expansion of the World Cup to 48 teams in 2026 have increased the number of fixtures. This commercial growth, however, risks placing an increasingly heavy price on the players.

Maheta Molango, CEO of the Professional Footballers' Association, has identified 50 to 60 games per season as the threshold beyond which the risk of injury and fatigue increases. Many top-flight players have already exceeded that threshold by combining club and national team competitions.

The future of European football, according to BCG, could therefore develop along very different paths. One possibility is a financially sounder system, but increasingly dominated by a small elite of clubs. Another envisions greater collaboration between the smaller leagues, called upon to combine commercial strengths and schedules to counter the growing influence of major competitions.

Then there's the possibility that players themselves will impose a limit on the number of matches through collective bargaining agreements, new rules, or judicial intervention. Finally, a second football product could emerge, shorter and designed for streaming and a younger audience, following in the footsteps of formats like the Kings League and Baller League.

The challenge, therefore, is not merely economic. European football must strike a balance between commercial growth, club sustainability, competitiveness, and player protection. The risk is that an increasingly wealthy machine will also become increasingly fragile.