Prize money for the Conference League may pale to the vast fortunes that slosh around the Champions League, but winning UEFA’s third-tier competition still offers up a tremendous payday.
Last season, Chelsea earned £15m all told, not just from beating Real Betis in the final but via performance-related rewards, as well as a share in the overall pool divided equally among every participant.
This time out, Crystal Palace and Fiorentina are the two hot favourites in the football betting to replicate the Blues’ success. Should either of them succeed they too can expect a bumper payout, though even reaching the semi-finals can be lucrative, netting the final four £2.2m apiece.
Of course, these figures need to be placed in context, doing so by looking at the great scheme of things.
In the Champions League last season for example, Slovan Bratislava finished 35th out of 36 in the league-phase, playing eight games and losing every one of them.
Yet the Belasi earned pretty much the same as Chelsea, who won all six of their Conference League group commitments before knocking out Copenhagen, Legia Warsaw, Djurgardens, and finally Betis.
In 2024/25, Southampton were furnished with £109m – a figure seven times greater than Chelsea’s bounty – for finishing rock-bottom of the Premier League.
Yet if that puts this tournament’s prize money into perspective, amidst a footballing world awash with ridiculous wealth, it doesn’t factor in the highly pertinent non-financial benefits.
For Chelsea’s legion of fans, and for the club itself, their participation in the UEFA Conference League amounted to a thoroughly enjoyable continental adventure, made all the more enjoyable by ultimately attaining a European honour, the tenth in the club’s history.
It helped put a significant gloss on what was otherwise only a fair-to-middling campaign.
Prize money Breakdown
Before we break down the prize money on offer in the Conference League it is necessary to again illustrate how poorly it fares when compared to its two big brothers, the Champions League and Europa League.
Each year UEFA allocates £2.91 billion for its three marquee tournaments. But only 10% of that goes to the competition that began in 2021, ostensibly as a replacement for the long-defunct Cup Winners Cup.
Still, £261m is not to be sniffed out, even if it is divvied up between 144 teams, from those who exit early in the qualifying rounds right through to the eventual finalists.
Here then, is how that sum is distributed…
Qualifying rounds and Play-Offs
Last season, fifty clubs participated in the First Qualifying Round, two-legged fixtures that took place very early in the season, between July 11th and 18th.
The 25 clubs that fell at the first hurdle were compensated to the tune of £282,900, a healthy payday to some, a windfall to others.
The latter surely applies to Bala Town, the Lakesiders residing in the Cymru Premier with a ground that holds only 504 seats.
Despite being in receipt of such a huge cash injection the 145-year-old club cut 30% of their expenditure earlier this summer to ensure continued survival.
Bala were not the only Welsh side who competed in the tournament’s opening gambits, with Caernarfon Town making headlines for beating Crusaders on penalties. Alas, the Canaries were subsequently thrashed twice-over by Legia Warsaw who impressively went on to reach the quarter finals.
Caernarfon were remunerated £456,500 for their troubles and it’s safe betting to suggest that figure boosted their financial health hugely.
Next up, it was the Third Qualifying Round and perhaps the biggest name to tumble at this stage was Brondby. The Danes banked £630,500 after losing to Legia, who were on a charge.
Finally, before the tournament proper commenced, there were the Play-Offs to contend with, and here some very familiar names entered the fray.
French side Lens would have had realistic aspirations to go deep in the competition. Instead they took home £804,400, vanquished by Panathinaikos.
League Phase
Consisting of 36 clubs, all variously seeded and committed to playing six games across the seedings, the League Phase ran from early October to the week before Christmas.
Now the big money really started to roll in with each club guaranteed to claim £2.76m no matter what, which must have been a blessed relief to Petrocub Hincesti and LASK who each failed to win a single match.
What the Romanian and Austrian outfits did miss out on was the additional £348,000 paid out per victory while £115,000 was rewarded for each draw.
The club that finished in the top eight were furnished with an extra £348,000 prior to their knock-out commitments. The rest in the league were handed half that amount apiece.
Round of 16 to Final
Teams that exited at the first knock-out stage were comforted with a £696,000 payout, on top of what they had already accrued. Panathinaikos departed at this juncture, as too did Copenhagen.
After reaching the last eight, against expectation, Legia Warsaw now tumbled, the Polish side – along with Jagiellonia Bialystok, Celje and Rapid Wien – compensated to the tune of £1.1m.
The semi-finals meanwhile saw Fiorentina and Djurgardens take their leave, with the final in Wroclaw in sight. They did so £2.1m richer for their two semi-final outings alone.
After amassing £8m for making it to the final Real Betis found themselves outclassed in Poland. The additional £3.5m would have been small, if no, consolation for walking past the trophy empty-handed.
TV Market Share
As well as the figures tallied above, clubs also received payouts for their share of the overall television revenue, their percentage based on the numbers they pulled in.
Unsurprisingly, with their Premier League status and global appeal, Chelsea were rewarded the most money in this regard, receiving £3.3m by the tournament’s end.
With so many viewers across the continent tuning in for the final Real Betis came a close second, earning £2.5m.
Irish club Larne came last, handed just £32,176 and though it’s easy to think of this as a pittance compared to Chelsea’s share, it’s worth acknowledging it’s just £3000 less than their entire wage budget for 2024/25.
*Credit for the main photo belongs to Alamy*
