Cyprus football royalty APOEL FC are set to earn about €13.7 mln having reached the Champion’s League playoffs, after they eased past Aalborg of Denmark 4-0 on Tuesday night at Nicosia’s heat-drenched and crowd-packed GSP stadium.
The superior home club, that is making its third attempt at this stage, has already stacked up 30.14 points in the UEFA rankings and is now placed 58, boosted by the previous time it reached the playoffs in 2011-2012. It is now looking forward to the draw of the 32 clubs that will take place on Thursday evening, where it could face some of the giants such as Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern or Chelsea, or other big names such as Schalke, Dortmund, Paris Saint Germaine or Manchester City.
Giorgos Donis hopes APOEL draw Juventus or Olympiacos FC after the “finest moment” of his coaching career: the 4-0 win against Aalborg BK, whose Kent Nielsen admitted incomments after the game that the Cypriot champions deserved to advance. The Nicosia club had drawn 1-1 in the first leg in Denmark.
APOEL is to get €8.6 mln for reaching the playoffs, and is looking forward to a further 2.1 mln it will bank during the six away and home games in this stage.
Ticket sales from the three home games should earn the club a further €500,000 each time, while its share of the market pool from TV rights will be in the region of €1.5 mln. Any draw during the next six games will be worth €500,000, while a win will bring a cool 1 mln.
Apart from a fresh lineup and relatively good performance this season, APOEL have also done well financially, despite the economic crisis facing the country that had had an impact on sponsorship and local ticket sales.
On July 25, the club signed a 5-year television rights deal with state-owned cable provider Cytavision worth €8.9 mln, seen by fans as far better than the previous agreement with LTV.
The agreement for 2014-19 will be limited to local league games that already started this month and will double the club’s revenues, according to fan site Apoel.Net.
The site had said that the deal replaced the agreement with cable operator LTV, adding that the company had trouble paying amounts due from the “bad deal”.
The cooperation agreement does not include other commercial clauses, such as jersey sponsorship, unlike deals between other clubs and TV providers, which makes it even more favourable, as the club is free to secure additional revenue streams from new sponsors.
