The 25 Most Valuable Soccer Teams in the World

By: Daryl | May 12th, 2008

Malcolm Glazer top 25 richest clubs The money obsessed people at Forbes recently revealed the world’s top earning players and what they spend all that lovely money on. And very jealous we were too.

So if Goldenball’s salary was big enough to make your brain hurt, then stop reading now. Because below is a list of the 25 most valuable football teams in the world, which involves numbers with a lotta zeros on the end. Brace yourselves….

The 25 richest soccer teams in the world

There you go. As lovingly copied and pasted from Forbes, Man Utd are the most valuable soccer team in the world with a price tag of $1.8 billion. Forbes seem to suggest that Man Utd’s double whammy of expanding Old Trafford by 8,000 seats and charging more for tickets is a big part of their success, which I guess makes a lot of sense even if the price hike didn’t make Old Trafford regulars very happy.

Most interesting is that though Real Madrid have a higher revenue than Man Utd ($474m to $394m) less debt and a slightly higher actual income ($112m to $11m) they still find themselves valued at half a billion less than the Red Devils. Hard to say exactly why, and I’d love to hear from anyone who knows about these sort of things…

My uneducated guess is that Man Utd being in the Premier League makes them more valuable; the Premier League sells well overseas and there’s a current climate for high price buying and selling.

Either way, Malcolm Glazer appears to be doing something right. Because according to Forbes the old American fella could now sell the club for $300 million more than when he bought it for $1.5 billion in 2005.

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Category: World Football

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Ian Rose

The last Forbes U.S. sports rankings put the Dallas Cowboys on top (1.5 billion dollars) and the Vikings in last (782 million). On average, they are higher than the average EPL side, but none of them are as valuable a brand as Manchester United.
VictorM

I have not seen numbers, but my guess is that NFL teams are richer. It would only make sense, since the NFL limits franchises per city. Just imagine if ManU was the only team in Manchester, with no other Premier team or even Championship team within a significant radius. Imagine only Arsenal and Chelsea playing in London.
tanim

are the epl clubs richer than the nfl clubs... tell me plz
Jan

Although, whether Forbes actually put a lot of thought/work into this could be questioned. They list the Veltins brewery as owner/major shareholder of Schalke 04. Schalke's legal status doesn't even allow for an owner or shareholder. Veltins just pays for the stadium name.
Jan

I don't think Forbes factor in future earnings. That would be a lot of speculation. I think German teams are high in this list because their new stadiums add a lot of value to them.
ish

also dont forget that they could take into account other factors like squad value. Man U has a more expensive squad then real madrid who are still going through a restructering phase.
Lol look at chelsea our revenue is actually quite high because of tv deals and cl. Yet we still have -5 revenue because of stupid transfer prices and wages. Roman probably wont see a cent of profit from chelsea till like 20 years from now at the current way chelsea is spending. 20 mill euros for a RB? What are u mentally retarded???
Chris

I assume ManU is more valuable because Forbes doesn't think they're tapped out yet. Maybe RM already charges as much as they can, but ManU could still get away with more. Maybe ManU has higher expected future earnings. That would explain the German teams being higher than they should. Tickets are so cheap in Germany that Bayern could double prices any time they want and still fill their stadium.
Nelson

not only that, but 3 out of the 5 german clubs listed have no debt
Ian Rose

With all the talk about big money in the Premiership, Bayern is incredibly impressive at almost a billion dollars in value, and yet 0 debt. Huge club, huge brand, and management that can add and subtract.
Shazback

Mat : The money the clubs have is nothing like how much the club is worth. The Arsenal brand is powerful, the stadium is a massive asset... But he might not have much money to spend depending on running costs and such.

In sum : value is a stock, whilst cash is a flow.
Mat

I still don't understand what the hell does Wenger keep crying about if he has this much money and the brand is so powerful...