Manchester City have assembled the first billion-euro squad, a report by the CIES Football Observatory announced yesterday.
City, who have benefitted hugely since the Abu Dhabi group takeover in 2008, spent 1.014bn euros on their current players with Paris St-Germain (913m euros) and Real Madrid (902m euros) in second and third respectively.
The Premier League champions’ squad is worth 32 times the value of Norwich’s.
Manchester United have the second most expensive English squad (751m euros).
CIES, the football statistics research group based in Switzerland, looked at the senior players in each team in all four of Europe’s biggest leagues – Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga.
Paderborn, promoted to the German top flight in the summer, were found to have the cheapest squad, valued at 4m euros (£3.57m).
THE TOP 10
Club / squad value in euros
1. Man City – 1.014 billion
2. Paris St-Germain – 913m
3. Real Madrid – 902m
4. Man United – 751m
5. Juventus – 719m
6. Barcelona – 697m
7. Liverpool – 639m
8. Chelsea – 561m
9. Atletico Madrid – 550m
10. Arsenal – 498m
SELECTED OTHERS
11. Everton – 486m
12. Tottenham Hotspur – 465m
19. Leicester City – 312m
21. West Ham United – 259m
Source:Thisday
