Footie's richest match

The Championship play-off final will be the world's most lucrative single football match because of the cash bonanza for the winners.

The club which club joins Birmingham City and Sunderland in winning promotion to the Premiership is set for a £60 million windfall.

This is even if they fail, like Watford this year, to remain among English football's elite beyond the end of the 2007 / 08.

Next season they are guaranteed at least £35 million extra from TV rights and increased revenue from sponsorship, merchandising and matchday receipts, according to Deloitte.

And with £10 million in the form of "parachute payments" for the following two years after relegation, clubs know they will be in the money, with even greater fortunes for those clubs managing to establish themselves in the top-flight.

New TV deals have added an extra £20 million to the estimated £40 million that promotion was worth for Reading, Sheffield United and Watford who came up last season.

Alex Byars, senior consultant in Deloitte's sports business group, believes that the revenue gap between Premiership and Championship clubs will only grow.

Byars said: "The immediate revenue boost can provide promoted clubs with the finances to bridge the gap between Championship and Premiership revenues.

"Excluding the biggest five or six clubs, most of the other Premiership clubs will be relatively evenly matched in financial terms in 2007/08."

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