UEFA Champions League and Europa League's Market Pool

The concept of Market Pool
Market Pool is the variable component of the bonus awarded by UEFA to clubs participating in the Champions League and Europa League.
This amount is distributed taking into account the size of the TV market in the clubs’ country of origin, the position reached in the domestic league in the previous season and the number of matches played in the current edition of the UEFA competitions.
How does the distribution criteria work?
The size of the TV market in the country of origin is, without any doubt, the main responsible for the distribution of the Market Pool amounts. However, the position reached in the previous season has also impact, especially when comparing clubs from the same country. Thus, for example, in the 2011/2012 edition of the Champions League, although SL Benfica has reached the quarter-finals of the competition and FC Porto has not qualified to the round of 16, the Market Pool amount assigned to the 2010/2011 Portuguese champions was higher than the one of SL Benfica (€2,794,000 vs. €2,657,000).
Regarding the size of the TV market, it is clear the difference between countries such as England and Portugal. Thus, for example, in the case of the Turkish clubs, in the last four editions of UEFA’s competitions, 56% of the revenues received by them came from the Market Pool while in the case of the Portuguese clubs, this value was only 20%.
A specific case that occurred in 2012/2013, was the one between SL Benfica (2nd placed in the Portuguese League in 2011/2012) and Chelsea FC (6th placed in the 2011/2012 Barclays Premier League). In that season both were removed from the UEFA Champions League group stage, however, the Market Pool amount distributed to the Portuguese club only accounted for 12% of the amount received by Chelsea FC.
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What if Market Pool didn’t exist?
Recently, Football Industry published the article “The 50 clubs that received more revenues from UEFA (09/10 to 12/13)” in which we present the total amounts distributed to clubs as a bonus for their participation in UEFA competitions. However, if we ignore the revenues from the Market Pool, analyzing only the performance related ones, the published ranking gains a new order. For example, Liverpool, who comes in the 17th position when considering Market Pool revenues, is only in the 48th position in the performance revenues ranking. In the opposite side, Shakhtar Donetsk, who occupies the 12th position in the list below, is only in 58th place in the Market Pool revenues ranking.
TOP 50 – CLUBS THAT RECEIVED MORE PERFORMANCE REVENUES FROM UEFA (09/10 to 12/13)
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