ManU Remains Atop Forbes’ Soccer List; Ronaldinho Top Earner

Manchester United was valued as the world’s richest soccer club at $1.5B, according to FORBES, seeing its value increase 6% from a year ago. Real Madrid remained second at $1.0B, while Arsenal moved into third place, seeing the club’s value increase 9% to $915M. Juventus, which was relegated to Serie B in Italy after a match-fixing scandal last year, saw the biggest drop in value, down 18% from a year ago. On the player side, earnings (salary plus endorsements) for the ten best-paid soccer players rose 20% last year. Ronaldinho became the top earner at $29.5M, knocking Real Madrid MF David Beckham from the top of the list for the first time since ’04. Beckham came in second at $29.1M (FORBES, 4/16 issue).

FORBES' SOCCER TEAM VALUATIONS
RK	TEAM	NATION	CURRENT VAL. ($M)^	% +/-	REVENUES ($M)	OPER. INCOME ($M)^^
1	ManU	England	$1,453	6%	$310	$92
2	Real Madrid	Spain	$1,036	2%	$374	$83
3	Arsenal	England	$915	9%	$246	$20
4	Bayern Munich	Germany	$838	9%	$262	$62
5	AC Milan	Italy	$824	-10%	$305	$46
6	Juventus	Italy	$567	-18%	$321	$45
7	Inter Milan	Italy	$555	10%	$264	$26
8	Chelsea	England	$537	6%	$283	-$37
9	Barcelona	Spain	$535	22%	$331	$12
10	Schalke 04	Germany	$471	45%	$157	$37
11	Liverpool	England	$454	28%	$225	$37
12	Olympique Lyonnais	France	$343	65%	$163	$10
13	Newcastle	England	$260	-14%	$159	$11
14	Tottenham	England	$243	27%	$137	$9
15	AS Roma	Italy	$224	-15%	$162	$53
16	Hamburg SV	Germany	$221	NA	$130	$31
17	Manchester City	England	$208	-6%	$114	$9
18	Dortmund	Germany	$199	61%	$114	$1
19	Ajax	Holland	$196	13%	$95	$9
20	Celtic	Scotland	$185	18%	$106	$7
21	Everton	England	$165	34%	$107	-$15
22	Olympique Marseille	France	$157	NA	$105	$6
23	West Ham	England	$156	NA	$111	$6
24	Rangers	Scotland	$147	32%	$113	$12
25	Aston Villa	England	$140	16%	$91	-$21

WORLD'S TOP EARNERS IN SOCCER FOR '06
RANK	PLAYER	CLUB	NATIONAL TEAM	EARNINGS ($M)
1	Ronaldinho	Barcelona	Brazil	$29.5
2	David Beckham	Real Madrid	England	$29.1
3	Ronaldo	AC Milan	Brazil	$23.4
4	Wayne Rooney	ManU	England	$17.2
5	Michael Ballack	Chelsea	Germany	$16.8
6	Thierry Henry	Arsenal	France	$15.8
7	Zinedine Zidane	Real Madrid	France	$15.6
8	Fabio Cannavaro	Real Madrid	Italy	$14.6
9	John Terry	Chelsea	England	$14.3
10	Steven Gerrard	Liverpool	England	$14.2

NOTES: Revenues and operating income are for the ’05-06 season and converted into U.S. dollars based on June 30, 2006, exchange rates. NA = Not available. ^ = Estimates are based on past transactions, enterprise values (market value plus debt) of publicly-traded teams and current stadium deal (unless a new stadium is pending). ^^ = Operating income is EBITDA.