RFU presented a report on the key financial indicators of clubs in the two top divisions for 2022

Formally, the most commercially successful member of the Russian Premier League (RPL), as follows from the information published by the Russian Football Union (RFU) on the key financial indicators of its clubs, in 2022 were those who received a profit of almost 800 million rubles. modest “Wings of the Soviets”, and the main loser in this sense is “Spartak” with losses significantly exceeding 2 billion rubles. With the leader in revenue, however, no surprises. It turned out to be Zenit, which dominates the RPL, with revenues of over 16 billion rubles.

The RFU presented the next publication of the key financial indicators of the clubs in the two top divisions. It is produced annually in accordance with the rules of the Union of European Football Associations for licensing and financial fair play. The current report provides data for 2022. It marked the end of last season and the first half of the current one: it will end with the final round of the national championship on Saturday, as well as the Russian Cup superfinal on June 11.

The unexpectedness of the report can be considered the appearance of the rating, which ranks the clubs of the Russian Premier League in terms of profitability.

On the top line in it were the modest “Wings of the Soviets”, which are threatened with participation in the play-offs for the right to remain in the elite, with a profit of 777.5 million rubles, on the bottom – the grand “Spartak”. He is one of only six clubs that showed losses in 2022, along with other giants – Rostov, CSKA and Krasnodar, as well as Khimki and Torpedo, who have already taken off from the Premier League. The Spartacists, who just in the summer of 2022 changed the main owner – Leonid Fedun to LUKOIL, they amounted to 2.35 billion rubles.

However, it is customary to judge the resources and opportunities at the disposal of the club not by its profitability, but by the income received. And in the classification built on this principle, no surprises are found. It is confidently, by a wide margin, headed by Zenit, which guaranteed itself the fifth consecutive gold of the Russian championship. Its operating income for 2022 is 16.2 billion rubles. Their lion’s share (13.6 billion rubles), like most domestic clubs, Petersburgers, whose key partner is Gazprom, bring commercial income (this section includes, for example, sponsorship investments). Following Zenit are Krasnodar (9.3 billion rubles), Dynamo (7.9 billion rubles), CSKA (7 billion rubles) and Lokomotiv (slightly less than 7 billion rubles). Spartak (6.5 billion rubles) is in fifth position. However, the income of economical “Wings” is still more than two times lower – 2.7 billion rubles.

On the other hand, Spartak is almost the only club whose revenue structure in 2022 was played by matchday income, that is, generated directly by matches, primarily by ticket sales.

They brought him 1.3 billion rubles. For most other teams, this article is extremely insignificant.

Apparently, a curious intrigue is connected with it, concerning the following report. In 2022, matchday revenues in the Premier League grew by 1 billion rubles compared to 2021 with its tight anti-covid restrictions, to about 5 billion rubles. in total. But it will be interesting to see what they will be like after summing up the results of the current championship with its catastrophic drop in attendance against the backdrop of the widespread introduction of Fan ID and massive boycotts of games in protest against it by fans.

Alexey Dospekhov