Manchester City bag $5 million under FIFA payments for releasing players for World Cup

The international football governing body FIFA on Tuesday announced the payments that will be made under the Club Benefits Programme, launched by FIFA ahead of the 2010 World Cup. As per the announcement, English Premier League title holders Manchester City will receive the highest amount for releasing players for national duties in Russia.

City will get $5 million out of the $209 million allocated to be paid to 416 clubs from 63 member associations for releasing their players for international duty. Real Madrid are next in the list and the European champions will get over $4.8 million. The money will be paid out at a daily rate of $8,530 for each of the 736 players selected.

A statement was released by FIFA on Tuesday in this regard. “The FIFA World Cup is the pinnacle of football, generating passion and emotion from every player and every fan in every corner of the world. It is FIFA’s responsibility to redistribute the revenues of this unique competition among the entire football community, and clubs, obviously, deserve to share in this success as they were key contributors. I’m very pleased to see that teams from so many different regions will benefit from this programme, which will help to develop football even further around the globe,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino stated.

The football governing body will pay $209 million to clubs for releasing players for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The project was initially launched with a $40 million fund and it increased to $70 million at the 2014 World Cup.

Top 10 teams receiving share of benefits of 2018 FIFA World Cup:

1. Manchester City – $5,003,440
2. Real Madrid – $4,813,830
3. Tottenham Hotspur – $4,385,792
4. FC Barcelona – $4,145,950
5. Paris St-Germain – $3,894,080
6. Chelsea – $3,835,357
7. Manchester United – $3,656,360
8. Atlético de Madrid – $3,093,190
9. Juventus – $3,019,610
10. AS Monaco – $2,934,710

(With inputs from AP)