THAT Richard Scudamore said it almost as an afterthought says everything about the wealth of the Premier League now. Burnley are bigger than Ajax.

Thrown into conversation about the top flight’s new £5bn television deal, it was a statement that took many people aback.

Ajax, the four-time European champions, the inventors of total football, the club where Johan Cruyff rose to greatness.

They are one of the most famous names in world sport, and yet now they have been surpassed – in terms of income at least – by ‘little old Burnley’, as Sean Dyche described his own club this week.

The Clarets were a Fourth Division side when Ajax visited Turf Moor for a prestige friendly in 1992.

Perhaps Burnley will now be invited as famous guests to the Amsterdam Arena. Well, maybe not.

In reality, Ajax are still some way ahead of the Clarets in Europe’s pecking order. They may not be quite the powerhouses they once were but they were Champions League entrants again this season.

For Burnley, just survival in the top flight would be a major achievement.

Staying up would be worth more than £60m – a figure that would rise considerably again for the 2016/17 season when the new TV deal comes in, not that Dyche is thinking too much about it right now.

“I just like players playing football and winning, I’m not bothered about a TV deal,” was his concise answer.

He knows the Clarets’ lack of spending in the transfer market has been a source of controversy.

A recent Deloitte survey showed that last season all 20 Premier League clubs were among the top 40 richest clubs in the world in terms of revenue.

That put the likes of Cardiff and Hull above Porto, Lazio, Valencia and Celtic.

Cardiff earned £62m in television revenue alone for finishing bottom of the Premier League – the same as Inter Milan, twice the amount of Atletico Madrid and Bayern Munich and almost three times as much as Monaco.

The Clarets will earn a minimum of the same amount this season. Further revenue from sponsorship and various other income streams will boost that number.

Ajax’s income will be supplemented by Champions League cash and they will bring in much more than Burnley in most other areas, with attendances at around the 50,000 mark – more than double the Clarets’ average of 19,017.

But Ajax’s domestic television income is suggested to be less than 10m Euros, and their total revenue for last season was listed as around £77m.

Burnley’s turnover for the same season was £19m, but that number will now climb significantly.

When the next rich list is published next year, Burnley are predicted to be among the top 40 clubs in the world.

Not bad for a a town whose population is just 73,500 - not even among the 40 biggest in England.