The incredible jackpot that awaits Brest thanks to the Champions League!

«This feeling of having played the match we wanted to play, with, I think, a lot of maturity, even though we are still novices at this level. There is a lot of pride when we prepare matches with the staff, to see that behind it, it translates onto the pitch and that (faced with) the pitfalls that we had imagined, we can get up to speed in terms of intensity, in the physical impact that we knew they were going to try to put on us“. This is what Eric Roy explained after the new demonstration of Stade Brestois on the European scene in Prague on the lawn of the reigning Czech Republic champion (1-2). A third victory in four matches and an incredible position of 4th in the Champions League standings. Halfway through, the Ti-Zef, who are forced to play at the Stade du Roudourou in Guingamp, because the Francis Le Blé stadium does not meet UEFA standards, are for the moment qualified directly for the 1 / round of 16 and are ahead of Inter Milan, FC Barcelona, ​​Manchester City, Juventus, Arsenal, Bayern, Real Madrid and of course PSG, relegated 6 points from SB29.

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Enough to put butter in the spinach and even better than that for a club more accustomed to playing to stay in Ligue 1 than to crazy European epics. With a budget of €48 million this season (almost the same as for the 2023-24 season), the club chaired by Denis Le Saint is seeing its bank account fill up visibly. It must be said that Brest is already benefiting from the system put in place by UEFA for its very lucrative Champions League. After having already cashed a check for €18.62 million for its participation in the C1 championship, the SB29 has already collected €7 million (€6.3 million for its victories against Sturm Graz, Salzburg and Sparta Prague and 0, €7 million for their draw against Bayer Leverkusen), for a guaranteed total of €25.62 million.

Brest could collect more than €40 million from the Champions League!

But Eric Roy's gang already has the assurance of gleaning much more. Already with the new ranking bonus put in place by UEFA. “Each team will thus receive an amount based on their final ranking in the league phase. The total amount available for bonuses linked to league ranking is divided into 666 equal parts (1+2+3+…+35+36). The initial value of each share will be €275,000. The lowest ranked team will receive a share (€275,000). A share being added to each rank, the best ranked team will receive 36 shares», We can read on the UEFA website. Understand that if Brest maintains its 4th place at the end of the championship (which seems quite hypothetical with a stronger second part of the calendar with FC Barcelona and Real Madrid in particular on the program), it will also receive an additional €8.25 million. And that's not all. 99% insured (according to a predictive model ofchoose) to compete in the play-offs next February, Brest will receive an additional €1 million in qualification bonus. And if the Ponant club manages to stay in the top 8 and qualify directly for the 1/8 finals of the competition, €11 million is guaranteed.

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The future therefore seems bright for sports director Grégory Lorenzi, especially since we have not mentioned the third and final source of income promised by UEFA, namely the new “value” pillar which is a combination of the old pillars “market share” (country market value) and “coefficient” (individual club coefficient), or market pool for the more knowledgeable. This amount, the total of which is around €853 million, is generally allocated at the end of the season to each club qualified in the group stage of the Champions League based on the actual results of the sale of media rights for the competition on the competition markets. UEFA. As it stands and according to various calculations, this amount could well exceed €15 million.

All these gains promised to Brest could therefore represent at the end of the season more than forty million euros at least… almost the budget of the Breton club last season in Ligue 1. A real goose that lays the golden eggs, the League of Champions will therefore delight Brest, who will hit the jackpot. Enough, in a bloodless economic context for French football, to ensure a comfortable mattress in the seasons to come, to reward its strong men (Brest only has an annual payroll of €23 million, or ten times less than that of PSG) who proudly carry French football in the UEFA index ranking. Also a good way to send a message to all the players and all the informed observers who did not believe in the Breton club's European project. Whatever happens from now on, it's just a bonus… and above all, just fun.