Bayern Munich announce record turnover for 2015-2016 financial year

Berlin (AFP) – German champions Bayern Munich on Friday announced record turnover for the 2015-16 financial year of 627 million euros (£533.3m; $664.6m), up by more than 100 million euros on the previous year.

Bayern’s pre-tax profits also increased by around 30 percent, from 23.8 million euros in 2014-15 to 33 million euros.

“Our entrepreneurial objective is the maximisation of sporting success alongside financial prudence,” said the club’s deputy chairman Jan-Christian Dreesen.

“Our increasing financial power will be used primarily to make the regular investments required in our first-team squad in order to ensure we remain competitive among the elite teams in Europe.”

While spending on players and staff rose by 33 million euros, the increase in revenue is largely down to income from sponsorship and marketing growing from 113.9 million euros in 2014-15 to 169.8 million euros.

Income from television rights marketing was 83.4 million euros, “a relatively low figure in international terms”, as the club said, but up from 58.3 million.

The figures underline Bayern’s dominance of the German game, in which they have won the last four Bundesliga titles and also won the German Cup last season.

Their biggest rivals at home are Borussia Dortmund, whose own revenue was 376 million euros. 

Bayern’s own figures are short of those announced by Spanish champions Barcelona, who announced revenue of 679 million euros for the last financial year. However, they are just ahead of the 620 million-euro revenue announced by Real Madrid.

The Bavarians, who have reached at least the semi-finals of the Champions League in each of the last five years, were expected to announce the return to the club as president of Uli Hoeness later on Friday.

Hoeness, 64, had been the president at the Allianz Arena before being sentenced in 2014 to three years and six months in prison for tax evasion.

He was released in February this year after serving half his sentence.