Real beat Man Utd in rich league

Manchester United have come second in the list of the world's richest football club, while Real Madrid stay on top for the fourth year in a row.

Deloitte's Football Money League, based on financial information for the 2007/08 season, features seven English clubs in the top 20 positions.The authors said that United would have been top of the Money League if the pound was still at June 2007 levels.Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool are fifth, sixth and seventh respectively.United won the English Premier League and UEFA Champions League in 2008, posting a significant 21% pound-denominated revenue growth.The list had been headed by Manchester United for eight years until Real Madrid deposed them.

The other English clubs in the top 20 are Tottenham Hotspur (14th), Newcastle United (17th) and Manchester City (20th).All the top 20 clubs represent Europe. Germany and Italy have four clubs each in the top 20, Spain and France have two clubs each.Fenerbahce became the first Turkish club to enter the top 20 since the creation of the list of the world's richest clubs in 1996/97. Germany's Bayern Munich climbed three places to fourth, returning to the top five for the first time in five years.

SAHARA sponsorship for Manchester United..???

Imagine the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo , Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs turning out to play for their club with the name of an Indian company prominently emblazoned on their jerseys. This is no idle fantasy Manchester United, the world's biggest football club, has reportedly approached the Sahara group for a sponsorship deal.

Man Utd club has been seeking sponsors and has sent a proposal to Sahara India which sponsors Indian cricket team's shirt.
Abhijit Sarkar, the head of Sahara's corporate communication, confirmed receiving the proposal .

A Man Utd club official said, "We have been in touch with a lot of sponsors and hope to strike something in the near future."

Currently, American International Group (AIG) has a contract for sponsoring Man U shirts for £56.5 million (about Rs 415 crore). The four-year deal began in 2006.
But with AIG being hit hard by the financial meltdown, the deal appears to have run into trouble. That could explain Red Devil's search for new avenues of sponsorship.