World Cup makes FIFA $631 million in four years
Reuters - Thursday 03 March 2011, 18:27
ZURICH - FIFA made a profit of $631
million over the last four years but was over-dependent on the
World Cup for its revenue, football's world ruling body said on
Thursday.
FIFA's financial report said 87 percent of its revenue of
$4.19 billion for the period had come from the 2010 World Cup,
including $2.41 billion from television rights.
Expenditure was $3.56 billion, $105 million over budget
because of additional investments in football development, and
the 2010 World Cup in South Africa cost $31 million more than
predicted.
"FIFA is financially strong and dependent on the World Cup,"
director of finance Markus Kattner told reporters.
"This illustrates the necessity for FIFA to build up and
have sufficient reserves to decrease its dependency on the World
Cup."
FIFA's financial report showed that profits from individual
years grew steadily from $49 million in 2007 to $202 million in
2010. The ruling body's reserves have reached $1.28 billion.
This beat its original targets for the four-year period by
$605 million as sales of television and marketing rights were
better than expected, currency financial hedging was successful
and FIFA was not adversely affected by the global financial
crisis, the report said.
Forty-eight per cent of FIFA's expenditure went on the World
Cup and other events and 22 percent, or $794 million, was spent
on development.
Operating expenses over the last four years totalled $707
million.