Liverpool and Juventus lost at least €18 million (US$25.8 million) when they were eliminated from this season's Champions League, according to a study commissioned by a tournament sponsor.

The former European champions still earned about €32 million (US$45.9 million) from prize money and television revenue but their disappointing group stage performances cost them.

And Professor of Sport Business Strategy Simon Chadwick said Barcelona earned about €110 million (US$158 million) from winning last season's tournament.

Liverpool could be hit especially hard. They are already struggling to compete for top players with rivals Chelsea and Manchester United and are deep in debt as they try to finance a new stadium.

Elimination pressure

Elimination makes it even more important for the five-time European champions to recover from their poor start to the season and qualify for next year's Champions League.

Liverpool are sixth in the English standings after losing six of their 16 Premier League games - as many defeats as they had in the whole of the previous two seasons combined.

They have to finish in the top four to at least make the qualifying rounds.

The club is about 245 million pounds (US$395 million) in debt and co-owner Tom Hicks this week said he would enter into negotiations to sell his Texas Rangers baseball team.

"The UEFA Champions League is worth as much as €6 billion (US$8.6 billion) to the European economy, with England, Italy and Spain enjoying the greatest economic boost in the last 12 months," Chadwick said in the MasterCard report. "That means that the annual UEFA Champions League 'economy' is comparable to the last FIFA World Cup finals in Germany.

"This makes it both a premium sponsorship property and an important contributor to the economic and commercial health of Europe."

The Premier League has pro-vided nine of the competition's past 12 semi-finalists and its success means that England were the biggest beneficiary from the tournament in 2009.

Manchester United

Manchester United reached the 2008-09 final and were then joined in this season's group stage by Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool. England took €129.5 million (US$185.8 million) in prize money, €25.5 million (US$36.6 million) more than Italy and €32.6 million (US$46.8 million) more than Spain.

French champions Bordeaux have taken the most prize money so far from this season's tournament: they completed the group stage with a tournament-high 16 points to take €11.5 million (US$16.5 million).