Real Madrid tops the football money table. - Real Madrid remains the world's largest revenue-generating football club, with Manchester United in second position and Barcelona third. Football is still a growth sport: the aggregate revenue of the top 20 clubs grew by 6% to €3.9 billion in a year, reveals the latest “Football Money League” report by firm of auditors Deloitte Touche, which calculates annually the richest football clubs in Europe, based on their revenue. During the season 2007-2008, the top three clubs each generated revenue of over €300 million: Real Madrid generated €365.8 million (+4%), Manchester United €324.8 million (+21%) and Barcelona €308.8 million (+6%). Bayern Munich, in fourth place with €295.3 million, rejoins the top five after an absence of five years, and is closely followed by Chelsea, in fifth place with €268.9 million in revenue. “Whilst Real Madrid's 4% revenue growth in 2007-2008 is more modest than recent years, the club has now doubled its revenues since 2002 ands enjoys a lead of €41 million over Manchester United. With the club having announced that it is budgeting for revenues of €400 million in 2008-2009, it will be difficult for rivals to replace Real at the top of the Money League next year,” commented Dan Jones, partner in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte. The success of Manchester United in winning the English Premier League and the European Champions League contributed substantially to the club's increased revenue, which was much greater than that of Real Madrid. The depreciation of sterling, which lost almost 20% of its value against the euro in a year, was the main reason why Real remained in top spot, says Deloitte, and it indicates that, had it not been for this depreciation, instead of seven English clubs in the Top 20 (Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal (5th), Liverpool (7th), Tottenham Hotspur (14th), Newcastle United (17th) and Manchester City (20th), there would have been nine, and Manchester United would have been in top spot. Paul Rawnsley, Director of the Sports Business Group, says that European football is well placed to resist the economic downturn: attendances are holding up well and clubs in England, Germany, France and Spain have TV deals secured well into the future. The Football Money League Top 20 refers only to European football. In addition to the seven English clubs, Germany and Italy have four clubs each (Bayern Munich, Schalke 04 (13th), Hamburger SV (15th), VfB Stuttgart (18th) from Germany, and AC Milan (8th), AS Roma (9th), Internazionale (10th) and Juventus (11th) from Italy), Spain and France have two each (Real Madrid and Barcelona from Spain, and Olympique Lyonnais (12th) and Olympique de Marseille (16th) from France). Fenerbahce, at 19th, is the first Turkish club to make it into the Top 20 since the Money League was first published in 1996-1997.