Professional football contributed 617 million euros to Portugal’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2021-2022, 0.29%, according to a report published today by the Portuguese League.
This figure represents an increase of 12.22% compared to the previous season, according to the sixth edition of the Portuguese Professional Football Yearbook, prepared by the consulting firm EY in collaboration with Liga Portugal.
This result responds to the increase in turnover (125 million euros more), which this season reached 917 million euros between the League and the 34 Public Limited Sports Companies (SAD) of the first and second categories of Portuguese football.
The rise is due to the “return of the public to the stadiums (after the covid pandemic), which allowed an increase in revenue from ticket sales, and the participation of the Portuguese teams in the Champions League in the 2021-22 season “, collects the report.
In total, despite the fact that in this period there were some capacity restrictions, 2.4 million people passed through the stadiums of the Portuguese first League, while the figure is only 307,000 in those of the second division.
The study also highlights that Portuguese professional football contributed 214 million euros to the State in taxes, an annual increase of 11.5%.
Pedro Proença, president of the League, stated in the document that these figures “demonstrate the potential of this industry” and “the importance of football in the economic fabric” of Portugal.