JAKARTA - The decline in the value of the US dollar last year cost the European Football Confederation (UEFA) around 55 million US dollars.
The dollar fell about 9 percent against a basket of foreign currencies in the first months of 2025, which economists attributed to investors' increasing confidence in the United States under President Donald Trump, who returns to office in January 2025.
UEFA said the dynamics of the economy, markets and geopolitics, as well as the sudden weakening of the US dollar, were the causes of the exchange rate losses that resulted in losses in its financial statements for the 2024/2025 football season.
"In recent years, UEFA has benefited from a strong US dollar, which has generated a large gain in exchange rates."
"However, in March 2025, the situation reversed. The US dollar weakened rapidly by almost 9 percent, resulting in a loss of exchange rate of 47 million euros (about Rp923.4 billion)," UEFA said on Thursday, January 15, 2026, local time, in a 52-page annual financial report that did not mention Trump's name.
The amount is equivalent to 54.5 million US dollars at the exchange rate of Thursday, January 15, 2026. The amount is almost the same as the overall net result in UEFA's latest annual financial report of minus 46.2 million euros (53.6 million US dollars) funded from its reserves.
Losses from the weakening US dollar reduced UEFA's reserves to 521.8 million euros ($605 million) at the end of June 2025, slightly above the 500 million euro level it wants to maintain to guarantee funding for its 55 member federations and host national team competitions from senior to junior levels.
Although UEFA-organised club events, such as the Champions League, generate billions of euros each season, most of it is paid as prize money and does not generate a profit for the organisation based in Nyon, Switzerland, it.
The Euros, held every four years, generate around 2.5 billion euros for the 2024 edition in Germany. The money is a source of UEFA's reserve funds.
More than half of that revenue goes to UEFA's funding programme known as HatTrick.
The program is UEFA's commitment to member associations investing in football development projects, which is twice the amount they receive each year from FIFA.
UEFA stated in its financial report that it needed to maintain a large US dollar position to support its extraordinary hedging transactions. Therefore, when its value began to fall a year ago, a large loss was inevitable.
"Foreign exchange rates have been consistently positive for several years, but unfortunately this changed in the spring of 2025 when the US dollar suddenly weakened for various reasons, including economic, market and geopolitical dynamics," the UEFA document said.
UEFA acknowledged disappointing results for its asset management last year compared to the extraordinary 2023/2024, which was the last full financial year during the previous US administration.
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