There has been a lot made of the upcoming World Cup being held in Qatar both in respect of the timing and the location and now it’s been revealed just how much money Premier League clubs will get for their players participation.
Why do clubs get paid during the World Cup?
Mega rich Premier League clubs getting sums of money from the World Cup might seem a tad twisted but there is a logic for it. The players are contracted by the clubs and are therefore their assists; the payments, which are dished out by FIFA, are seen as compensation for the release of the players.
With 123 Premier League players – many of whom will be in England’s squad – jetting off to Qatar that FIFA bill is going to be a hefty one with the payments configured as a set fee per player per day and that includes the warm up to the tournament as well. Payments are somewhere in the region of £8-9k per day and with 19 days bringing us up to the end of the group stages (that’s 13 days of football plus a six day per-tournament training period) each player will earn their club a payment of between £152 and £171k.
If a player makes it all the way to the Final that figure could rise to a top end of £315k; that’s for a single player’s participation.
What club will earn the most?
Whilst the overall FIFA bill is unpredictable owing to the fact we don’t know which nations will go the deepest at Qatar we do know how that money will be split come the end of the group phase with all nations having played the same number of games.
All Premier League clubs have at least one representative in Qatar with Southampton and Crystal Palace having the fewest players at the World Cup. They each have one player heading over meaning they’ll bag at least £171k. At the other end of the spectrum you have Man City; they’ve got 16 players due in Qatar meaning they’ll bank a hefty £2.7m from the group stages.
The league average sees six players departing their clubs to play in the World Cup; that half a dozen players will see their teams bank just over £1m. Those figures will likely skyrocket too with plenty of players likely to progress beyond the group stages.
Here is a full breakdown of how the Premier League clubs will be compensated up until the end of the group phase:
| Club | # Players | FIFA Payment |
| Man City | 16 players | £2,736,000 |
| Man Utd | 14 players | £2,394,000 |
| Chelsea | 12 players | £2,052,000 |
| Tottenham | 11 players | £1,881,000 |
| Arsenal | 9 players | £1,539,000 |
| Liverpool | 7 players | £1,197,000 |
| Fulham | 6 players | £1,026,000 |
| Leicester | 6 players | £1,026,000 |
| Forest | 6 players | £1,026,000 |
| Newcastle | 5 players | £855,000 |
| West Ham | 5 players | £855,000 |
| Brighton | 4 players | £684,000 |
| Brentford | 4 players | £684,000 |
| Aston Villa | 4 players | £684,000 |
| Everton | 4 players | £684,000 |
| Leeds | 3 players | £513,000 |
| Wolves | 3 players | £513,000 |
| Bournemouth | 2 players | £342,000 |
| Crystal Palace | 1 players | £171,000 |
| Southampton | 1 players | £171,000 |
*Figures stated above are based on a daily payment of £9k per player, per day.
With the above figures considered, the top three clubs – Man City, Man United and Chelsea – are expected to bring in over £100k per day from the moment they release their players through to the end of the group phase!
Bonkers, right?
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