Football is the most popular sport on the planet and for good reason. Its origins date back to China some 2,000 ago. Even though many cultures and empires like the Romans and Greek claim to be the founder of this amazing sport, England is the country that modernized and standardized football into the sport we all know and love today.

Nowadays in modern times, more than 240 million people around the world play football as we know it today, and it’s another proof of how popular football as a sport has become.

What’s even more amazing is that it’s growing in popularity every day, month and year.

Football is also the sport most people love betting on, and it's present in every sportsbook and online betting site. For lovers of betting be sure to check out this SBK sportsbook promo which will give you some great benefits if you’d like to start betting on football.

Some Amazing Football Statistics You Probably Had No Idea about

Now we’ll go into some football statistics that you may be unaware of even if you are a die-hard football fan, and you’ve been following football for many years. You’ll probably find some of them surprising, independent of your football knowledge.

Football Requires a Lot Of Infrastructure

Football is played in stadiums which require a lot of room and money to be built. But how many stadiums do you need for such a popular sport? Over 241 different stadium projects have taken place on European soil in the last ten years, and an amazing 43 European countries have had a stadium built. That’s a lot of stadiums even though football is such a popular sport.

About 36% of clubs own the facilities they use and over 80% of top-division clubs have invested in some sort of a training facility in the past 5 years. Football infrastructure also creates a lot of new job opportunities.

Football Brings In a Lot Of Revenue

Football is a profitable sport. If you don’t believe us let’s look at some statistics that will highlight just how much revenue football brings in. In 2018, top-division football clubs reported a whooping 21 billion euros of revenue, an increase of 5% when compared to 2017.

The top 30 clubs combined reported revenue of more than 10 billion euros, which is 49% of the total revenue for all top-division clubs. Over 40% share of overall revenue growth in 2018 came from domestic TV and the revenue increased by gate receipts increased by 8%.

So, football is getting more popular on both TV and live matches.

Football Includes a Lot Of Transfers

Football is a sport with a lot of transfers of players, and a lot of money in transfers spent totaling many billions of euros. In 2018 football clubs reported a record 5 billion in transfer income. Up to 85% of gross transfer spending and up to 75% of earnings related to transfers were recorded in Europe’s top 5 football leagues. The football club Manchester City reported an enormous 282 million euro net transfer, which is the highest transfer ever recorded in football history. Clubs trying to win transfers is a sport in itself.

Football Is Also a Very Costly Business To Run

Even though it brings in a lot of revenue, football has a lot of costs attached to it. Operating costs account for most of the expenses related to running a football club with up to 33% of the expenses attributed to operating costs. Outside of the top football leagues, clubs can expect to pay up to 50% of their revenue in operating costs which is a staggering amount when put into perspective. A lot of commercial development is involved in football, so the top 20 football clubs reported an increase of 11% driven solely by commercial development. But financial expenses also rose by over 20% in 2018 which was attributed to more costs to football.

These are just some of the most interesting statistics involved in football as a sport. Football as a sport is huge, so new situations develop every day, and it’s really hard to keep track of everything related to it. If you found these statistics interesting, make sure to search for some more information related to them.

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