Football club's in the Premier League are once again the most profitable in the world, according to the Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance 2009. The clubs' returned a collective profit of £203 million, beating into second place the Bundesliga, whose clubs returned a £118 million profit, which had been the top earning league in 2006-07.

The Premier League clubs generated £2.1 billion of revenue in 2007-08 - a 26 per cent increase, spurred by the beginning of a new period of football rights deals.

"It will, of course, be hard to maintain this pace in the immediate future. The new economic realities may lead to flat matchday revenues," said Dan Jones, head of Deloitte's Sport Business Group.

"While attendances continue to hold up well, many clubs have frozen or reduced ticket prices. However, the stepped increases in the current domestic broadcast deal and the new UEFA Champions League TV deal make it likely overall revenues will edge up."

The total European football market was worth £12.7 billion in 2007-08, according to Deloitte. This represents a £867 million increase on the previous season, driven by a £609 million increase in revenues in the 'big five' European leagues - England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France - and the staging of Euro 2008.

Spain's La Liga and Germany's Bundesliga came joint second after the Premier League in revenue-generation, with £1.22 billion each. For La Liga it was an 8 per cent increase; for the Bundesliga it was a 4 per cent increase.

Serie A was the fastest growing league in revenue terms, although this was significantly boosted by the return of Juventus, following its demotion to Serie B two seasons ago for involvement in match-fixing. The Turin club contributed two-thirds of the £310 million (34 per cent) increase in league revenues.

The Deloitte report warned, "The greatest challenge may come in maintaining commercial revenues and higher priced corporate hospitality ticketing, while also addressing wage and other cost inflation."