Hammers to get small slice of European £236m pot

UEFA have decided to release £61.1million immediately to help clubs during the current financial difficulties with a further £175m to paid out for European clubs who would have received money releasing players for the postponed Euro 2020.

West Ham has plenty of international and the club would have received money for allowing their players to take part in international matches this season and then from the Euros that would have taken place this summer.

Declan Rice, Andriy Yarmolenko, Lukasz Fabianski and Pablo Fornals were all odds-on to be called up for their countries this summer.

An initial payment for those players used in the qualifiers would normally have been paid after the European Championship play-offs, but now UEFA have decided in their latest meeting on Thursday to release those funds sooner.

“The UEFA Executive Committee today decided to release immediately the club benefit payments related to the clubs’ contribution to UEFA national team competitions in light of the current crisis and the financial difficulties many clubs are facing across Europe,” read a UEFA statement.

“Such payments were originally scheduled to be made on completion of the European Qualifiers play-offs, but given the challenges faced by clubs that are having to meet ongoing financial commitments while seeing revenues dry up during the lockdowns, payments will now be made immediately, as follows:

“€50million (£43.6million) will go to clubs having released players for the 39 national teams not involved in the European Qualifiers play-offs.

“€17.7million (£15.4million) will go to clubs having released players for the 16 national teams taking part in the European Qualifiers play-offs (not including payments for the play-off matches, which will be paid on completion of the play-offs).

“The balance of €2.7m (£2.3million) – related to players released for the play-offs – will be distributed upon completion of the play-off matches in the autumn

The statement goes on: “For UEFA EURO 2020, a minimum of €200million (£175million) is available for distribution to clubs as agreed in the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between UEFA and the ECA, which was renewed in 2019.

“Based on the payment distribution mechanism approved by the UEFA Executive Committee, €70m will be distributed among those clubs which released players for the European Qualifiers and the UEFA Nations League, and the remaining €130milliom (£113million) will be distributed among those clubs releasing players for UEFA EURO 2020.