Leon Osman targets the Champions League with Everton
LEON OSMAN has pinpointed Champions League football as Everton's high priority target next season - as it was revealed that the Blues UEFA Cup run last season netted just ã400,000.
The enormous disparity in revenues between Europe's two cup competitions was highlighted by UEFA figures announced yesterday.
European champions Manchester United netted ã33.9m, semi-finalists Liverpool earned ã22.1m, but even the lowest earners among the 32 teams who reached the Champions League group stage - Ukraine's Shakhtar Donestsk - earned ã5.6m from their six matches.
And those figures did not include gate receipts or matchday revenue.
Everton's 10-match run to the last 16 of the UEFA Cup netted just ã400,000, Tottenham and Bolton each earned ã352,000, while even finalists Rangers only collected ã4.1m.
Osman admitted that Champions League football was a priority - and one the Blues players believe is within their reach.
"If we didn't think we could push into the top four there wouldn't be any point in us playing," he said.
"Everyone wants to get better and improve themselves and we're no different.
"We finished fifth last season, and the only way to aim is higher . . . and fourth place is higher."
Osman has been an interested viewer of the European Championships, with semi-finalists Russia including a number of players who featured against Everton in their UEFA Cup adventures against Metalist Kharkiv and Zenit St Petersburg.
"There were quite a few Russian players in the teams we played, which just shows the quality we were up against," Osman added.
"It also shows just how good a team we've become that we came through all those games."
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I'm not 100% on this but isn't the 400k just prize money, as teams in the UEFA Cup have to negotiate their own individual TV rights. Whereas in the Champions League, the Teams get a share of the Prize Money *and* TV Revenue Pot.
I'm not saying we got anything like the Champions league money, I'd just like to know if the figures used were comparative. I would have thought we'd have averaged at least 100k a game in TV rights, if not more when ITV became involved.
And to think I was going to talk to someone in perosn about this.