Manchester City celebrate becoming the UEFA Champions League winners in 2023
The Copa Libertadores and the Champions League are without doubt the two most important competitions in club football worldwide.
For decades on end these two continents have been the home of football and have had by far the most successful clubs and national teams on the planet. Still in their own development stages, the likes of Asia, Africa and North America have rarely even come close to challenging.
World Cup Winners at international level have only ever come from Europe and South America, and that’s in 22 separate tournaments over the course of nearly a century.
Meanwhile at club level the Club World Cup winners have only ever come from these two continents as well.
From England to Germany and Argentina to Brazil these lands are hubs for football. They are full of adoring fans and historic clubs, towns and cities where football trumps over all else.
Today, these two tournaments are still massively important to their respective followers. In fact, the Copa Libertadores is as crucial, if not more-so, to the football fans of South America as the Champions League is to Europeans. What is the difference between winning either one of these prizes? The money.
The resounding difference in these competitions is the prize money that comes with it, and those winnings have a snowball effect on the quality of the competition in the years to come.
There are differences in style of play, geography and fanfare of course, but above all the thing that separates these two tournaments more than any other is the economics.
The financial disparity between the two competitions is quite frankly gobsmacking. For reaching the group stages of the UEFA Champions League alone a team will take home almost $17 million. On the other hand, if a South American team reaches the group stage of the Copa Libertadores, their prize money before a ball is kicked sits at $3 million. Almost six times less than the Champions League rate.
The competitions also give out prize money for group game victories. In Europe that prize money is just over 3$ million per three points. In South America a group stage win is worth just $300,000, over 10 times less the prize money. In fact if you draw a game in the UEFA Champions League group stage you earn over three times more than you would for a win in the Copa Libertadores.
In the Libertadores a place in the last 16 of the competition will gain you a further $1.25 million in prize money, where in the Champions League you will earn over an extra $10 million.
This sort of comparison in prize money shows the gap in economics between club football's two biggest competitions. For that very reason the European sides have seen off their South American rivals with relative ease in Club World Cup clashes over the last few years.
In the 2011 Club World Cup Final a young Neymar of Santos faced off against F.C Barcelona and his ... [+]
Only once since 2007 have the Copa Libertadores winners defeated the UEFA Champions League winners in the Club World Cup. During the same time period European teams have beaten South American sides on nine occasions. In the other six finals that have taken place since 2007, European teams won against teams from other continents as the South American champions had been knocked out of the competition early.
The proof is in the pudding. The gap in quality is huge, but it is fair to say that it makes perfect sense when you compare the finances of both continents. The bigger the financial disparity; the bigger the gap on the field.
If you reach the quarterfinals of the Copa Libertadores you take home $1.7 million more in prize money. If you can make it to the semifinals it's an extra $2.3 million, and then there is a little bit of a jump to the final numbers. A date with destiny in Rio de Janerio this year would also win the finalists an extra $7 million.
Meanwhile in Europe the numbers just get more grand and quite frankly ludicrous as the tournament goes on. Reach the quarters and you are up an extra $11 million. If you reach the semis it's another $13.5 million and if you can get to the final a stonking $16.5 million extra.
Of course there is some prize money kept back for the eventual tournament winners too. $11 million extra is on offer for the Copa Libertadores winners, whereas the Champions League victors take home just $6 million more than their final opponents. This is the only game where the price between winning and losing is greater in South America, but the overall winnings are still lower.
The total purse for the Copa Libertadores is $207 million, but this is dwarfed by the monumental Champions League kitty, which will pay out a total over 2 billion dollars this year.
At international level the South American countries are more than holding their own, as Argetina exemplified by becoming World Cup Champions in 2022. However at club level the gap is worrying, and until something changes about the massive wealth gap between the two continents and their main competitions, the results on the pitch won’t change either.
Lionel Messi holds aloft the World Cup. Argentina defeating France was a great source of pride for ... [+]
