The Bayern Munich icon Karl-Heinz Rumminegge once mused: “There are some players who do not come with a price tag.” He just wasn’t being ambitious enough.
Paris Saint-Germain’s acquisition of Neymar Jr. from Barcelona for a record-shattering fee of $263 million in 2017 proved that no player is unattainable in the modern realm of state-owned clubs. While that high watermark has not been surpassed since, it has inflated the sums splashed around an increasingly extortionate transfer market.
Barcelona’s veteran striker Robert Lewandowski lamented the current epidemic of soccer economics. “You are young, you score 10 goals in six months and some club will pay 60 or 70 million,” the former Bayern man moaned. “Before, you had to achieve something.”
Such is the swollen nature of figures bandied around, there are nine clubs with squads made up of players worth in excess of $1 billion—and one of them is relegation-battling Tottenham Hotspur.
Taking into consideration a player’s quality, age, position and length of contract, the CIES Football Observatory estimate the market value of these professionals. By tallying up each squad member’s valuation, the inherent caliber of a team can be assigned a monetary value. Some clubs are much better value for money than others.
15. Brighton
Squad valuation: $894 million
Most valuable player: Diego Gómez ($86.4 million)
As recently as 2011, Brighton & Hove Albion were playing in the third tier of the English soccer pyramid in a stadium with a capacity of little more than 8,000.
Fast forward a decade and a half and this same, modest south coast club is home to players more valuable than the likes boasted by AC Milan, Italian royalty and seven-time European champions.
14. Juventus
Squad valuation: $896 million
Most valuable player: Kenan Yıldız ($152.5 million)
There was a time in the not too distant past when Juventus would have expected to find themselves at the sharp end of a list like this. The Old Lady of Italian soccer won nine successive top-flight titles from 2012–20 and reached two Champions League finals. Yet, in their quest for continental glory, they overreached.
If Icarus flew too close to the sun, the wax on his wings melting and sending him crashing back down to Earth, Juve invested all their savings into a rusty jet-pack which malfunctioned.
Once wages, commissions and a bloatedHH transfer fee were all factored in, Juventus splurged more than $350 million on a 33-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo, who only took them further away from the success they so cherished.
The outbreak of COVID-19 proved to be a perfect storm, knocking Juve right out of the sky.
13. Atletico Madrid
Squad valuation: $903 million
Most valuable player: Julián Alvarez ($136.5 million)
Tiago Mendes won the 2013–14 La Liga title with Atlético Madrid and fully bought into the club’s underdog psyche. “These are difficult times, and people identify with us, as we are fighting against many adversities,” he said. “We’re like Robin Hood.”
Rather than robbing the rich to give to the poor, Atlético Madrid must emphatically bracket themselves into the category of the monied elite.
12. Newcastle
Squad valuation: $907 million
Most valuable player: Nick Woltemade ($124.9 million)
In June 2024, Nick Woltemade left Werder Bremen on a free transfer to join fellow Bundesliga side Stuttgart.
In July 2025, Woltemade became the third most expensive German player in the history of the sport.
Much like the club’s record recruit, Newcastle United’s economic rise has been concussive. Yet, while Woltemade can point to a remarkable deftness of touch and a nose for goal, the Magpies owe their transformation to the controversial investment of the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF).
11. Inter
Squad valuation: $942 million
Most valuable player: Lautaro Martínez ($117 million)
Serie A loves an existential crisis. After a poor showing in the 2025–26 Champions League knockout stages, the pink pages of the nation’s sports dailies were littered with talk of a collective lack of quality that needed to be addressed.
Yet, it’s not all so bleak at Inter. Fresh from two Champions League finals in three years, the Nerazzurri’s wealth of lucrative talent is underpinning the club’s run to a 21st Serie A title.
10. Man Utd
Squad valuation: $953 million
Most valuable player: Benjamin Šeško ($100.3 million)
Manchester United’s own communications department used to deliver a pitch to potential commercial partners and investors declaring themselves “the No. 1 team in the No. 1 sport.” Half of that remains true.
The record Premier League champions have tumbled down the pecking order since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement. While a place in the top 10 may be impressive for a club which finished 15th in England’s top flight last season, it represents a sharp decline from their former heights.
9. Tottenham
Squad valuation: $1.03 billion
Most valuable player: Xavi Simons ($98.1 million)
Given their current relegation plight, Tottenham’s position this high up the list may raise a few eyebrows. Interim manager Igor Tudor certainly didn’t seem to think a lot of a group of players who “are lacking when we attack, we lack the quality to score the goal. We are lacking in the middle to run and we are lacking behind to stay there to suffer and not concede the goal.”
CIES make a point of noting that no players out on loan are considered in the total, however, those unavailable through injury are included, which helps explain Spurs’ plight.
8. Bayern Munich
Squad valuation: $1.15 billion
Most valuable player: Michael Olise ($162.6 million)
As the dominant force in their domestic market, Bayern Munich traditionally gobble up every promising prospect the Bundesliga churns out. Not content with national hegemony, the club’s enduring quest for European success sees them hoover up some of the most exciting figures across the continent.
Not that Vincent Kompany is willing to let his squad know how talented they are: “I always tell my players, ‘When there’s hype please don’t believe it, you’re not that good.’”
7. Liverpool
Squad valuation: $1.20 billion
Most valuable player: Florian Wirtz ($149.8 million)
The market value of Liverpool’s roster got an enormous boost over the summer when the freshly crowned Premier League champions doubled down on their success by putting together the single most expensive transfer window in the sport’s history.
However, Arne Slot’s side have proven that investment doesn’t directly correspond to success. In fact, this rampant upheaval of the squad flies squarely in the face of how Liverpool build their legacy as serial title winners in the 1970s and ’80s.
“We do not like change for the sake of change,” was the message Liverpool chairman John Smith liked to deliver. “We like continuity.”
6. PSG
Squad valuation: $1.55 billion
Most valuable player: Désiré Doué ($150.3 million)
Can you have a squad valued at more than $1.5 billion and still not be called flashy? Well, when previous rosters have been littered with the likes of Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappé, this current iteration of Paris Saint-Germain is certainly more pared back in comparison. And deliberately so.
PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi has gone to great pains to stress how the club’s “bling-bling” era has been brought to an end. Now, all Luis Enrique has to work with is a ramshackle squad made up of just the eight players who received Ballon d’Or nominations last year. Very low key.
5. Arsenal
Squad valuation: $1.55 billion
Most valuable player: Bukayo Saka ($131.5 million)
Mikel Arteta has forged Arsenal into a global heavyweight, calling upon all his powers of tactical acumen, human empathy and admiration for Thomas Edison. Just don’t give him control of the finances.
“The budget is like when you have your wedding: you plan your wedding with your wife and you give her a budget and it’s never less, it’s always more,” he mused unconvincingly last year.
“When you build a house, it’s always more. Normally this happens. You prepare for different scenarios. Then unfortunate things happen. There are so many variables that can happen but there is a budget.”
4. Barcelona
Squad valuation: $1.60 billion
Most valuable player: Lamine Yamal ($403.9 million)
Barcelona’s hulking valuation can be put down to one individual in particular. Lamine Yamal accounts for a quarter of the total squad’s monetary billing, the largest proportion of any player among the continent’s elite.
Yamal’s suffocating influence on the spreadsheets is backed up by his involvement in the vast majority of Barcelona’s best moments on the pitch.
3. Real Madrid
Squad valuation: $1.78 billion
Most valuable player: Kylian Mbappé ($221 million)
Real Madrid is an institution unashamedly powered by stars.
“We’re like a big blockbuster movie,” the club’s long-serving CEO José Ángel Sánchez has said. “Like Men in Black—or, in our case, Men in White. We’ve a great story to tell, a great production and the biggest box-office stars.” That glitz and glamor doesn’t come cheap.
2. Man City
Squad valuation: $1.85 billion
Most valuable player: Erling Haaland ($272.1 million)
Sometimes, you can have too many options.
Pep Guardiola is blessed with a pool of costly talent so deep even he, undoubtedly the greatest manager of his generation, can still struggle to decide which players are best suited for each game. “I’m still finding the best way,” he has freely admitted this season.
1. Chelsea
Squad valuation: $1.99 billion
Most valuable player: Estêvão ($141.2 million)
The unorthodox transfer strategy deployed by Chelsea’s BlueCo ownership was not immediately popular. “They flipped it to a model giving eight-year contracts to 22-year-olds,” prominent pundit and serial Premier League champion Gary Neville fumed as the Blues stumbled towards a 12th-placed finish during the regime’s debut season.
“[It’s] like playing Football Manager, it’s been terrible.”
Eventually, there seems to have been a method to that madness.
Chelsea now boast a collection of some of the most highly rated (and valuable) young players on the planet, all of which have been tied down to exceedingly long deals. This approach has given them a strong financial position but whether it will translate into a sustained Premier League title challenge is still to be seen.
