AC Milan received the most money from last season's Champions League, earning just under 40 million euros on the way to winning European soccer's top club competition for the seventh time, UEFA said on Tuesday.

Milan, which avenged its defeat in the 2005 final to Liverpool by winning 2-1 in this year's final in Athens in May, collected 39.59 million euros ($54.04 million), followed by semifinalists Chelsea (34.66 million euros) and Liverpool (32.22 million euros).

The figures were issued on Tuesday, by UEFA, European soccer's governing body who run the competition.

Sevilla, of Spain, which won the UEFA Cup for the second successive season, picked up 6.25 million euros after beating Espanyol on penalties in the final in Glasgow. Espanyol's prize-money totalled 5.31 million euros.

The figures released do not include income from match-day tickets.

Last season was the first in a new three-year cycle for the marketing of European soccer's top club competitions.

The formula for dividing up the revenues from both competitions along with the financial gap between the elite Champions League and the less prestigious UEFA Cup has been a bitter bone of contention between UEFA, national associations, leagues and clubs.

Half of the revenues were distributed by awarding fixed sums to clubs at every stage of the competitions, while the other 50 percent was based on the market value of each national market.

The amounts of money handed out for reaching various stages of the competitions ranged from 2.0 million euros for every club who qualified in the Champions League up to Milan's additional earnings of 7.0 million euros for winning the final.

Liverpool received 4.0 million euros as Champions League runners-up.

In the UEFA Cup, each team received 70,000 euros by way of qualification with Sevilla receiving 2.5 million euros for winning the final and Espanyol earning 1.5 million as beaten finalists.

What is clear is that clubs in the Champions League make far more money in that competition even if they are far less successful than clubs in the UEFA Cup.

For example, UEFA's figures show that Levski Sofia of Bulgaria, who lost all their six group stage matches in the Champions League and were eliminated, still made 1.0 million euros ($1.37 million) more than Tottenham Hotspur ($5.85 million) who won their first eight successive matches in the UEFA Cup before going out at the quarterfinal stage to Sevilla.

(China Daily via Agencies July 12, 2007)