Premier League leads the way in rich league

The English Premier League is by far the richest in Europe, according to Italian internet sports business company StageUp.

In a study into the proceeds garnered by the top European leagues the Premier League finished a billion euros ahead of Italy's Serie A in second.

England's top division earns 2.43 billion euros a year, according to StageUp, with Serie A second on 1.43 billion euros.

Surprisingly, though, Germany's Bundesliga was third, just behind Serie A, on 1.42 billion euros with Spain's La Liga (1.35bn) and France's Ligue 1 (1.04bn) rounding out the top five.

However, the company claimed that German teams lead the way in major club sponsorship deals with an average of 6.9 million euros per club while the Germans also have the highest average attendances of 40,000 fans.