London football's rich list

Among London's Premier League representatives, there is little sign of poverty. Nor should there be. The top-flight clubs each received a basic payment of £6,297,250 merely for being in the league. In addition, the clubs also received £523,014 every time they appeared live on satellite television or £53,290 if highlights of their games were broadcast.

Each of London's Premiership clubs appeared live on satellite on at least five occasions during the last season; the total fees payable to the ?lite clubs for these and highlighted TV appearances exceeded £18m.

By contrast, First Division teams received a basic payment of £620,000 each from the Football League to which Fulham added £50,000 in prize money for winning the title.

The financially hard-nosed would point to the fact that West Ham were awarded 40-times more than this (£2.02m) for finishing 15th in the Premiership.

In the Second Division, Brentford and Millwall were the recipients of basic payments of £300,000 each and champions Millwall won £25,000 for finishing at the top of the table.

Put another way, the Lions' prize money was less than one fifth of what Sol Campbell is reportedly seeking for a week's work. Finally, despite a run to the play-off final, Leyton Orient received £210,000 from the Football League, as all Third Division teams did, and received no prize money to supple-ment the basic pay.

In even starker contrast to the TV monies distributed to the Premiership clubs were the corresponding broadcast revenues paid to teams outside the top flight, most of which would barely register in the bank balances of players at the very top.

For example, the away team in a live, televised Third Division clash received £10,000; this sum marks the extent of Leyton Orient's gross television income for the season. In the First Division, Fulham and Watford each featured in seven live games although neither club collected more than a total of £260,000 as a result.

Both Watford and Wimbledon were assisted by the "parachute" payment of £3,070,500 paid by the Premier League to recently relegated clubs; this sum accounted for more than the total of Wimbledon's league gate receipts.

There are some other interesting facts which can be gleaned from our table. The much-derided LDV Vans trophy proved lucrative for Millwall, Brentford and Orient and, although Orient fans are probably still weeping about their defeat in the play-off promotion final, they banked a relatively huge amount of money from taking part.

And, although Spurs fans had a miserable season, they still turned out in big numbers.

Tottenham's average attendance was second only to Arsenal's and the fans paid out more than £20m to watch Premier League games at White Hart Lane.

In contrast, Wimbledon, London's seventh most successful club in terms of league position, had a lower average attendance than all but two of the capital's clubs, and that meant that their gate receipts from First Division games were less than half those of their Selhurst Park landlords, Crystal Palace, who finished 13 places below them.

Above all else, however, our rich list proves conclusively that the gap between football's have and have-nots has become a canyon.