Chelsea's ECL prize money exposes true cost of Villa and Forest failings

Chelsea were named Europa Conference League champions this season after dominating the competition, but the prize money they earned exposes the true profitability of the Champions League

Chelsea's prize for winning the Europa Conference League has been exposed by the much more lucrative Champions League purse. The revelation rubs salt into the wounds of those who just missed out on qualifying for UEFA's elite club competition this campaign: Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest.

The final day of the Premier League season was defined by the battle for Champions League football, with Manchester City, Newcastle, Chelsea, Villa and Forest all in with a shout of nabbing one of three spots up for grabs. Pep Guardiola's side had the simplest job, only realistically needing a draw to stamp their ticket. They did just that after a 2-0 away win against Fulham.

With both the Blues and Nuno Espirito Santo's men facing one another on the final day, the winner would be guaranteed Champions League football. A 50th-minute Levi Colwill tap-in meant that the visitors returned from their trip to the Midlands happy, and finish in fourth thanks to a 1-0 win, starving the home side of an elite European return.

In light of the Villans' 2-0 loss to Manchester United, which came under controversial circumstances after the decision to disallow a Morgan Rogers strike saw a complaint written to the PGMOL, Newcastle took the final place despite losing to Everton.

The lucrative prize money associated with playing in the Champions League, which both Forest and Villa narrowly missed out on, has now been highlighted via a statistic involving the Europa Conference League winners and Slovan Bratislava, the team that finished just one place above the bottom of the elite competition's table this time around.

Chelsea were rewarded with a reported £18.5million for their European efforts this term. In contrast, the Slovakian champions, despite losing all eight of their Champions League group phase matches, astonishingly earned an almost similar amount.

They bagged £15.5m just for qualifying for the competition, and additional sums were earned for finishing in a specific league position, and from broadcast revenue based on a ten-year club coefficient ranking.

A total of £18.46m was amassed by the team who finished 35th in the Champions League table, a figure akin to that earned by the winners of the Conference League, reports Birmingham Live.

The Villans and Nuno's Forest, still smarting from their losses, will feel this stark disparity in prize money, although they will be showcasing their skills in both the Europa League and Conference League next season, respectively.

Elsewhere, Tottenham – this season's Europa League winners – pocketed £3.6m when they qualified for the competition and earned performance-related amounts and their coefficient share of broadcast revenue on their journey to the final.

All told, for winning the tournament, Ange Postecoglou's Spurs raked in roughly £35m, plus an additional £3m for reaching the UEFA Super Cup. This is not even considering the amounts tied to subsequent Champions League qualification.

However, this sum is still dwarfed by the earnings of eventual Champions League victors PSG, who pocketed approximately £130m for their success in Munich.