The figures that show just how important Europa League win is to Tottenham Hotspur

Tottenham Hotspur have one foot in the Europa League final and, with it, the chance to make the league phase of the UEFA Champions League next season.

The 3-1 success over Norwegian side FK Bodø/Glimt last week has given Ange Postecoglou’s team a significant advantage heading into the second leg of the tie on Thursday evening, while in the other semi-final Manchester United hold a 3-0 lead over Spain’s Athletic Bilbao. A final between two Premier League heavyweights who have struggled domestically this season looks a good bet.

Both teams require the pot at the end of the rainbow. With no success domestically this season and both teams facing the need to invest in the playing squad significantly in the summer, the riches of the Champions League offer them something of a get out of jail free card, a chance to tap into more than £100m in additional revenue if they are able to secure victory.

For , that kind of revenue boost would be of huge significance this summer. The club has profit and sustainability rules (PSR) headroom of some £200m, but carrying heavy transfer debt on the books, something that could see them have to sell to buy in the transfer window due to the need to cash flow the business and transfer payables due way over and above the receivables to come in, means that revenue from the Champions League would be something of a saving grace, especially given there won’t be European football at all if they fail to win this season’s Europa League.

Much of Spurs’ transfer debt has been on credit in recent years, and as of the 2023/24 accounts, published last month, the transfer payables, which is , stood at £337m, an increase of around £250m from the £88m it stood at back in 2019, the year they moved into their new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium home. Sitting behind only Chelsea’s £479m, Spurs’ transfer debt is the second largest in the Premier League.

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In terms of what is coming the other way, Spurs are owed £58m in transfer receivables from clubs, meaning that there is a £279m difference between the two, and that is not insignificant.

Given the way that PSR looks at allowable losses of £105m with permitted deductions for investment into infrastructure, the women’s team, the academy and community initiatives, Spurs’ heavy debt, much of it attributable to the new stadium, means that they are still in a good PSR spot, especially given their significant commercial and matchday revenue, and the low wages to revenue ratio that they have.

When it comes to the Champions League, qualification brings with it an immediate £15.7m in income as part of the revamped league model, where clubs play a minimum of eight games instead of six. At the league stage, every win earns a club £1.8m and a draw £590,000.

For finishing in the top eight of the league phase, which seals automatic qualification to the round of 16, UEFA awards £1.7m to each team.

UEFA then rewards teams for winning each round of the knockout phase, with the winner getting £21.5m, the runner-up bagging £15.9m, the semi-finalists scooping £12.9m, the quarter-finalists £10.7m, and those making the round of 16 getting £9.4m.

There is then the very significant matter of the Value Pillar, where TV rights are spread around clubs at a value commensurate to the club’s successes through two pillars, the European part and non-European part. The European part is the club market value and five-year UEFA coefficient, while the non-European part is based on a club’s 10-year coefficient. Some idea of what could be expected can come from the £16.5m that Aston Villa received in terms of the value pillar in 2024/25. In contrast, Manchester City received £38.6m.

If Spurs made the Champions League, to low-ball what could be expected, using the possibility of no money being made from wins or draws, the club would still bag some £28m, while four additional home games would bring in around £20m. But any additional success, such as wins and draws and qualification, as has been achieved by Aston Villa this season, can deliver up to £85m, a sum that will be larger for the bigger clubs with larger slices of the value pillar. Matchday revenue for Spurs, on average, stands at a little over £5m per game, meaning that getting into the knockout phase would add a potential three home games on top of that.

The money that Spurs have achieved this season from the Europa League is far below what the Champions League offers. The club have bagged around £21.2m, but qualification for the final and also winning it would bring in £44.9m. But it is what it unlocks for next season that will be most impactful, given that the club will also see a significant reduction in what they will receive from the Premier League’s central funding based on this season’s league performance.

Last season, Spurs finished fifth and claimed £45.1m from the merit payments that are distributed on a sliding scale, with the money derived from the domestic and international broadcast rights paid.

If Spurs were to end the season in 16th, the position they currently hold, then they would see that fall to £14m, a drop of almost 70%.

There are still millions to play for in the league when it comes to additional merit payments made for finishing higher, but it is the two remaining games in the Europa League that will define what this season, and forthcoming seasons, will look like.