The winners of the second-tier continental club competition in 2002/03, still under the name UEFA Cup, and in 2010/11, already as the Europa League, the “dragons” have amassed €23.612 million, above the €21.368 million of the “Gunners”.
These amounts exceed those of the previous season, when, in the first edition played with a 36-team league phase instead of the 32-team group stage, FC Porto collected €16.488 million, after being knocked out by Italy’s Roma in the round of 16, while Sporting de Braga, eliminated in the main draw, earned no more than €13.437 million.
As in 2024/25, the “blue and whites” entered this season directly into the competition’s league phase and immediately received €4.31 million, while the team from Minho added to that base amount a further €350,000 from the preliminary rounds, in which they overcame Bulgaria’s Levski Sofia, Romania’s Cluj and Gibraltar’s Lincoln Red Imps.
In terms of pillar value, linked to the market volume of the respective country and the clubs’ coefficient in the UEFA five- and 10-year rankings for the European and non-European shares, respectively, FC Porto collected €9.31 million, against Sporting de Braga’s €6.797 million.
The “dragons” earned €6.51 million from the European factor, in which they ranked seventh — the minimum €217,000 was multiplied by 30 shares — and €2.80 million from the non-European one, having ranked second — €80,000 times 35.
In the case of the “Gunners”, €4.557 million came from the European component, given their 16th place in that hierarchy, and €2.240 million from the non-European share, as they stood in ninth position.
In addition to the entry prize and the pillar value, the two teams also earned money based on their performance from the league phase onward, in which FC Porto and Sporting de Braga finished fifth and sixth, both securing direct access to the round of 16, with 17 points from five wins, two draws and one defeat.
Each win was worth €450,000, for a total of €2.25 million, and each draw brought in €150,000, up to €300,000, while the final standings allowed, with the remainder from the draws, bonuses of €2.592 million for the Porto side — 32 shares multiplied by €81,000 — and €2.511 million for the Minho side — 31 by €81,000.
As there were 25 draws in that phase, creating a surplus of €3.75 million, each position came to be worth €81,000 more than the one immediately below it, instead of the €75,000 initially set by UEFA.
FC Porto and Sporting de Braga also received €600,000 for finishing in the top eight and €1.75 million for automatic entry into the round of 16, becoming the first Portuguese clubs to achieve that feat since the latest format change in the Europa League main draw, which allowed them to avoid the play-off.
While the “blue and whites” beat Germany’s Stuttgart twice (2-1 away and 2-0 at home), the “Gunners” first lost to Ferencváros (2-0), but turned the tie around at home against the Hungarians (4-0), securing the €2.5 million bonus associated with reaching the quarter-finals.
The total prize money can continue to rise if Sporting de Braga and FC Porto eliminate Betis and Nottingham Forest, managed by Vítor Pereira, who won the Portuguese title with the “dragons” in 2011/12 and 2012/13.
In that case, each club would add another €4.2 million, and could then aim for €7 million for reaching the final, scheduled for May 20 at Beşiktaş Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey, and €6 million for winning the trophy.
UEFA also reserves €4 million for the finalists of the European Super Cup, to be played in August between the winners of the Champions League and the Europa League, with the winning team receiving an additional €1 million prize.
The two Portuguese representatives can only meet in the final, and they were in fact Europa League finalists in 2010/11, in the only all-Portuguese final in the history of continental competitions.
For now, the €23.612 million amassed by FC Porto is only slightly below Betis’ €23.658 million and English side Aston Villa’s €23.803 million.
Right behind come two clubs eliminated in the round of 16, Italy’s Roma (€22.101 million) and France’s Lyon (€21.739 million), managed by Portuguese coach Paulo Fonseca, with Germany’s Freiburg (€21.427 million) ahead of Sporting de Braga (€21.368 million), in a competition that distributes total prize money of €565 million to clubs, far from the €2.467 billion of the Champions League.
Sporting, two-time Portuguese champions and opponents of England’s Arsenal in the quarter-finals, have already secured €79.582 million in Europe’s top club competition, more than three times the amount earned by the best Portuguese club in the Europa League.
Sporting de Braga host Betis on Wednesday at 17:45 at the Municipal Stadium of Braga in the first leg of the Europa League quarter-finals, a day before FC Porto face Forest at 20:00 at the Dragão Stadium in Porto, with the respective second legs scheduled for April 16 in Seville and Nottingham.
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.
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