Football still a lucrative game: Deloitte report

Singapore

FOOTBALL continues to be a beautiful and lucrative game; toplines and wages in Europe's top leagues are still on the rise, according to the latest edition of Deloitte's Annual Review of Football Finance.

The report said the cumulative revenue of the "big five" European leagues grew 5 per cent to 9.8 billion euros ($16.7 billion) in 2012/13. That's about half of the overall size of the entire European football market, whose takings went up 2 per cent to 19.9 billion euros.