The Croatian national football team has a golden opportunity to secure direct qualification to the 2024 European Championship by defeating Armenia in their upcoming game at Maksimir stadium on Tuesday at 8:45 p.m. This match promises to be lucrative for the Croatian Football Association, as a successful result could earn them a substantial sum of money. In fact, Uefa has disclosed information on the revenue distribution and potential earnings for national teams participating in the Euros in Germany, and Croatia stands to gain 9.25 million euros simply by qualifying for the tournament.
Uefa has not increased the prize pool for this edition of the Euros, which remains at 331 million euros compared to the previous one held in France. However, despite this, Uefa expects to generate a record amount of revenue from the 2024 European Championship in Germany, with earnings projected at 1.7 billion euros – an increase of 600 million euros over the previous edition held in 2021. It’s important to note that comparisons between this year’s tournament and previous ones may not be entirely accurate due to circumstances such as the coronavirus pandemic and multiple host countries in previous editions. Nevertheless, Uefa anticipates significant revenue growth compared to Euro 2016, which was held in France.
In addition to these significant earnings for qualified teams, Uefa has also allocated a record amount of funding for countries that do not make it into the European Championship – a total of 1.19 billion euros. This is an increase of over 50% compared to the amount allocated from Euro 2016. Despite this generous allocation, Uefa still predicts higher earnings than Euro 2016 for qualified teams, indicating that there is considerable financial incentive for nations to strive for qualification.