Real Madrid: World’s most valuable football club
European champions top Forbes’ poll for third straight year while Barcelona and Manchester United complete top-three.
European champions Real Madrid are the world’s most valuable football club for a third straight year, according to a Forbes poll that showed the average value of the top 20 teams rose 11 percent over last year.
Top-10 |
1 Real Madrid $3.26bn 2 Barcelona $3.16bn 3 Manchester United $3.10bn 4 Bayern Munich $2.35bn 5 Manchester City $1.38bn 6 Chelsea $1.37bn 7 Arsenal $1.31bn 8 Liverpool $982m 9 Juventus $837m 10 AC Milan $775m |
The Spanish club’s value fell five percent to $3.26bn but their $746m in revenue, the highest of any sports team in the world, was enough to keep them top of the list, Forbes said in a statement.
Keep reading
list of 4 items‘Historic moment for fans’: British football to get independent regulator
Elon Musk defends using prescribed ketamine for ‘negative frame of mind’
Cubans stage rare protests amid blackouts, persisting economic crisis
Barcelona ($3.16bn), Manchester United ($3.10bn), German champions Bayern Munich ($2.35bn) and Manchester City ($1.35bn) rounded out the top five.
Rising television and shirt sponsorship revenue helped drive the average value of the top 20 clubs to $1.16bn, a staggering 84 percent jump from five years ago.
Eight of the top 20 teams are from the English Premier League, which Forbes credited to both a rise in the British pound relative to the euro and US dollar and a lucrative new domestic TV deal starting from the 2016-17 season.
Serie A champions Juventus ($837m), AC Milan ($775m), Inter Milan ($439m) and Napoli ($353m) are the only Italian teams to crack the top 20 but none were higher than ninth place.
Forbes said the once-great Serie A brand has been undermined over the past decade by match-fixing scandals, antiquated stadiums, rising debts and a decline in talent on the pitch.