The clubs with the most expensively-assembled squads in world football have been revealed – and you may be surprised by who tops the list.
Europe’s richest clubs have been breaking the bank season upon season in their endless pursuit of success, whether that be domestically or in the Champions League.
This summer alone Premier League champions Liverpool splashed out a stunning £450million on eight new recruits, breaking their record transfer twice on, first, Florian Wirtz and later Alexander Isak.
It was also an expensive summer for Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal, who spent north of £250m, Manchester United, with a bill worth around £225m, and of course Newcastle United’s Saudi Arabian ownership. They too forked out almost a quarter of a billion.
European giants Real Madrid’s seemingly never-ending spending on the continent’s most highly-sought after talents is also well documented.
Yet, according to new stats produced by the Football Observatory, none of the aforementioned footballing powerhouses have the most expensive squad in world football.
Liverpool splashed out an incredible £450million on eight new recruits this summer
For all of their struggles, Manchester United also broke the bank with a spend of almost a quarter of a million
It’s Chelsea however who boast the most expensive squad in world football
No, that title is won by none other than Todd Boehly’s Chelsea.
Enzo Maresca’s Blues are in fact the only squad on the continent which has cost more than £1billion to assemble. £1.14bn to be exact.
The signings of Enzo Fernandez (£105m), Moises Caices (£115m), Wesley Fofana (£70m), Mykhalo Mudryk (£89m) cost the club a staggering £280m while recruits such as Cole Palmer, Romeo Lavia, Marc Cucurella and Joao Pedro only add to that sum.
Their squad sits above Manchester City’s squadron of superstars costing £980m, United’s underperforming roster worth £933m and Liverpool’s Premier League-winning side totalling £928m. Arsenal have meanwhile splashed out a staggering £872m on the players currently at the club.
That’s right, the top five most expensively-assembled squads in world football are all from the Premier League. It’s hardly a surprise the English top flight is the best league in the world then, is it?
You have to look down as far as seventh to find the first non-English side included in the list. That being Paris Saint-Germain (£760m), who sit behind Tottenham Hotspur’s £849m, for all of their complaints about the recently departed Daniel Levy.
Xabi Alonso’s Real Madrid squad – consisting of the likes of Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Junior and Jude Bellingham – comes in at eighth (£744m), Newcastle United in ninth (£711m) and Atletico Madrid close out the top 10 with a much lower spend of £498m.
Incredibly, behind eleventh and twelfth-placed Juventus (£438m) and Bayern Munich (£432m) respectively are West Ham United, one place above the great Barcelona.
The Blues squad cost more than £1billion to assemble, more than any other side in world football
Incredibly, Graham Potter’s West Ham side cost more to put together than Barcelona’s LaLiga winning squad
Barcelona’s squad – including Marcus Rashford and Robert Lewandowski – cost £403m
For all of their struggles under Graham Potter, and there have been many, the Hammers boss is working with a squad which cost £430m to put together. Lucas Paqueta, Max Kilman and Matheus Fernandez alone set the club’s owners back north of £125m.
Pitting that against Barcelona’s more cheaply assembled side worth £403m makes for almost unbelievable reading. The LaLiga champions including Robert Lewandowski, Frenkie de Jong, Marcus Rashford and Raphinha (I could go on) cost less than Graham Potter’s West Ham. Let that sink in.
Napoli’s Serie A-winning squad of Premier League exports including Scott McTominay, Rasmus Hojlund and Kevin de Bruyne comes in at sixteenth (£397m), Al-Hilal (£392m) in seventeenth, RB Leipzig (£378m) eighteenth, Aston Villa nineteenth (£372m) and perhaps surprisingly in twentieth is Brentford (£364m).
Of course, such statistics certainly don’t mean Chelsea are nailed on for European success this term, far from it. Often it’s about who spent their money most wisely, rather than who spent the most.
Manchester United are a prime example of such. Ruben Amorim’s current squad – the same one which crashed out of the Carabao Cup to Grimsby Town – cost almost £1bn to put together.
Grimsby’s record signing set them back less than £500,000.
