Stats: Most expensive teams based on transfer expenditure
One of the aspects of football that has taken over the beautiful game and that dominates the success or failure rate of a club is the financial strength one possesses.
Clubs that once fought relegation battles or were insignificant in terms of contending for trophies have emerged as new super powers in Europe while elite clubs that had glorious years sitting at the peak of the mountain have crumbled and are just mere shadows of their former selves.
Perhaps the biggest example one can cite to prove this occurrence is that of Manchester City and Paris Saint German. The former once plied its trade in English football’s third division and then progressed to return to the Premier League only as a side that often played second fiddle to their city rivals Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and the other big guns.
But all of that changed when Sheikh Mansour of the Abu Dhabi United group took over the ownership duties at the Etihad stadium and went on to build a new era at the club, purchasing marquee names and accumulating a star-studded squad which went on to win two titles in three seasons thus announcing themselves as the new giants of England.
A similar turnaround happened in the Ligue 1 where Paris Saint-German emerged as one of the richest clubs in the world after Qatar Sports Investments became the major shareholder of PSG buying a controlling 70% of the shares.
The investment on Les Parisiens yielded results for the Qatari owners as the club dominated the domestic scene by winning league titles since their new era began even becoming one of Europe’s major contenders for the prestigious Champions League.
And on the other side, there have been unfortunate stories of teams that once were the symbol of Europe’s dominance or possessed some of the best players of a particular generation but faced a downward slope and lost their stature with depleting budget in their race against time.
Clubs like Parma dissolved while European giants such as AC Milan have been struggling in mid-table far away from any hopes of qualifying for the Champions League again- a tournament they have won 7 times.
In the end, it’s the survival of the richest in the modern game and some clubs have managed to maintain their constant success by spending and attracting huge signings over the years. Here, we take a look at the net worth of the top sides across Europe and how much overall value is based on their net transfer expenditure.
| Pos. | Teams | Team value (million€) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Real Madrid | 587 million |
| 2 | Manchester City | 560 million |
| 3 | Manchester United | 533 million |
| 4 | Paris Saint German | 525 million |
| 5 | Chelsea | 407 million |
| 6 | Barcelona | 394 million |
| 7 | Liverpool | 344 million |
| 8 | Bayern Munich | 337 million |
| 9 | Arsenal | 305 million |
| 10 | Juventus | 301 million |
Real Madrid, as seen in the table above, have the most expensive squad amongst all especially due to the mammoth spendings they have done in successions over the past few years. They broke the world record fee twice while bringing Cristiano Ronaldo (£80m) and then Gareth Bale (£91m) from United and Tottenham respectively.
United have been really busy over the past two seasons in acquiring high-profile players and recently they purchased 19-year-old Anthony Martial for €50m making him the most expensive youngster of all time.
Surprisingly, Liverpool have also made quite a few signings in recent times as they sit 7th on the table. However, they haven’t been able to produce the results that would deem their spendings as effective.