REAL MADRID MAKES WORLD-RECORD REVENUE IN 2010/11

MADRID  (AFP) - Spanish giants Real Madrid claimed Friday world-beating revenue for the sports world in 2010/11.

Real, which is leading the first division early in the new season, said sales shot up 8.6 percent to 480.2 million euros ($663 million) in the year to June 30.

'It is the biggest sum of any sporting institution in the world,' the club run by president Florentino Perez said in a statement.

Net profit surged 31.7 percent to 31.6 million euros.

The club said it also managed to trim its heavy debt load. Net debt fell 30.6 percent in the year but was still high at 169.7 million euros as of June 30, it said.

Real Madrid rakes in money from the stadium, television rights, marketing, membership fees and sales of players.

Real sharply reduced spending on players this summer when compared to the summer of 2009 when it splashed out more than 150 million euros on Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo.

The Madrid club notably recruited Coentrao from Benefica for 30 million euros and made a 10-million-euro bet on the future of 18-year-old Varane from Lens.

But the huge sums that Real Madrid and archrival Barcelona claw in from the sale of television rights have sparked a backlash from other less fortunate clubs in the Spanish league.

Real Madrid and Barcelona receive about 140 million euros ($197m) a year each from television rights, while small clubs such as Levante, Malaga or Real Sociedad get just 12 million euros each.

Sevilla president Jose Maria del Nido invited a dozen clubs to a meeting September 8 to seek a new distribution of the TV money that would sharply reduce Barca and Real's share.

They called for the TV rights sales to be centralised by the Professional Football League (LFP) and shared out more fairly.

Sevilla vice president Jose Maria Cruz said in a statement that Real Madrid had reacted coolly to the plans in an LFP meeting on Thursday and that most other clubs had not backed up Sevilla's position.

'It shows, once again, that consensus is only possible when we all defer to what is proposed by Real Madrid and Barcelona, otherwise consensus is unfeasible,' he complained.

'But we are not giving up and we won't cease in our determination or swallow it however much they attack us,' he said.