Five star teams. In Europe, several teams have colossal means to recruit and build eleven which are very expensive. It is precisely this subject in which the Football Observatory of the International Center for Sports Studies has taken an interest in his 395th Weekly Letter. Indeed, he revealed the ranking of the clubs with the most expensive starting compositions from the point of view of transfer costs (bonus included). For this study, CIES focused on teams playing in one of the five major European leagues, namely the Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A and Ligue 1.
Manchester City are at the top of the table
And it is Manchester City who are at the top of this ranking with an eleven which cost an average of 605 M€. As stated just before, this is an average. But the Skyblues lined up their most expensive eleven on October 22 against Brighton (3-1 victory) since the 11 elements lined up that day (Ederson, Akanji, Dias, Laporte, Cancelo, Rodrigo, De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva , Mahrez, Grealish and Haaland) had cost a total of €726 million in transfer fees. The residents of the Etihad Stadium are ahead of Paris Saint-Germain in this ranking. The capital club is fielding starting teams with an average value of €510 million.
Neymar, bought 222 M€, and Kylian Mbappé, for which Paris paid 180 M€, together represent 402 M€. This figure could have increased if Lionel Messi had not arrived free in France. Anyway, the residents of the Parc des Princes are in second position, they who also lined up their most expensive eleven on October 16 during the Classic against OM (Donnarumma, Hakimi, Danilo, Marquinhos, Bernat, Verratti, F.Ruiz, Vitinha, Messi, Mbappé, Neymar). On the pitch, Christophe Galtier’s team was worth €610 million that evening. The CIES specifies on the other hand that the least expensive team of PSG was aligned on October 8 against Reims. It was worth 332 M€!
PSG and the others in L1
On the third step of the podium, we find Manchester United (480 M€ on average), whose eleven most expensive is worth 640 M€. It had been set up against Newcastle (October 16). Then come Liverpool (409 M€ on average), Chelsea (393 M€), Arsenal (382 M€) and Real Madrid (370 M€), including the eleven most expensive, worth 457 M€ , was lined up against Betis (September 3). FC Barcelona (€334m), Juventus (€300m) and Bayern Munich (€294m) complete this top 10. The new rich Newcastle fail in 11th place with an average of €257m. With 5 clubs in the top 10, the Premier League is unsurprisingly the league that spends the most on transfer compensation with €233m by all clubs in the Kingdom.
The chasm is immense with Serie A (83 M€ on average), La Liga (76 M€), the Bundesliga (72 M€) and Ligue 1 (65 M€ on average, 41 M€ on average without the PSG). Regarding France, PSG are ahead of AS Monaco (€162m on average), Stade Rennais (€107m), OM (€94m) and OGC Nice (€77m) in the standings. Olympique Lyonnais, which has an average of €67 million, is not in the top 5 for France. This is also linked to the fact that several club-trained players are in the professional squad. It should be noted that Ajaccio (average less than or equal to €1m) is the cheapest club with eleven in France. They all have the same passion, but not the same wallet!