The Top 10 Richest Soccer Clubs In The World 2024
World football has changed rapidly in the last couple of decades. The amount of wealth in the game has ballooned and footballers live more glamorous lives than ever before, while the cost of being a supporter also continues to climb. The biggest football clubs have legions of fans and all sorts of income streams across the world, giving them unprecedented power and visibility.
But which are the richest soccer clubs of all? This is the question we'll be answering in today's article, as we examine the elite-level clubs raking in hundreds of millions of pounds every single year. Digging into the detail, it can be mind-blowing how much money those at the top of the game have, and by the time you've finished reading this article you'll know which team is the wealthiest of all.
Who Are The Most Supported Clubs In The World?
Generally speaking, the clubs with the biggest fanbases are able to generate much more cash than those with smaller supporter bases. It's basic mathematics; if you're able to fill a stadium with 70,000 people every other week, you'll make much more on ticket sales than if you can only occupy 25,000. On top of that, the biggest clubs these days also rely heavily on selling merchandise and other goods to their global fanbases, dotted all over the world. So who benefits most from this development?
Judged purely off social media followers (which fails to take into account other factors like ticket sales, shirt sales and broadcasting figures), the most-supported club in the world is Real Madrid. The Spanish giants have a total of 360.5 million social media followers including 151 million on Instagram and 38.7 million on TikTok. Their main rivals Barcelona are second when it comes to these figures, with a total of 318.8m social media followers, and in third place are Manchester United with around 207 million. Check out our article on the most supported clubs in the world for more information on this topic.
What Is The Richest Soccer League In The World?
The richest and most successful professional soccer league on the planet is the English Premier League. Ever since it was formed following the 1992 breakaway of England's top flight from the English Football League system — a move designed to maximise broadcasting income and guarantee revenue for the country's best clubs — the Premier League has got wealthier and wealthier by the year.
A quick look at the spending habits of Premier League clubs shines a light on just how much money is floating around in the English top flight, which has benefited massively from hugely profitable broadcasting deals all over the world. The 20 teams in the Premier League for the 2023/24 season have spent a total of €17.6 billion in the last decade, with Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City and Spurs responsible for €10.1 billion worth of that spending.
Since 2013/14, the two biggest spenders amongst those clubs have been Manchester City and Chelsea. The west London club topped the list with €2.46 billion worth of spending, while City spent €1.94 billion in the same period. These kinds of outlays can be traced back to the owners of each club. Chelsea owner Todd Boehly bought the club for a rumoured $3 billion in May 2022, while Manchester City are owned by the uber-wealthy Abu Dhabi United Group, led by Sheikh Mansour. Mansour himself is reputedly worth $17 billion alone, while his family's total wealth is thought by some to be $1 trillion. While there are other clubs across the world with plenty of cash, nowhere else in the world is on a financial par with the Premier League.
The Top 10 Richest Soccer Clubs In The World
Each year we get a glimpse at which global football clubs are generating the most cash, thanks to the Deloitte Football Money League, an annual profile of the highest revenue generating clubs in world football. The organisations bills itself as "the industry's most reliable independent analysis of the top earning clubs", so we can take their judgement as being pretty definitive.
Released earlier this year, the Deloitte's latest edition consists of figures relating to 2022/23, the most recent record we have of the financial status of the world's best clubs. And there's been some change at the top of the leaderboard… read on to find out who the richest soccer club in the world is in 2024.
#10. Arsenal (€532.6m)
Arsenal have made big strikes on the pitch in recent years, with Mikel Arteta's young squad growing in maturity and quality and seriously challenging for the Premier League title for the first time in years. Off the pitch, the club has also experienced growth, and for 2022/23 the Gunners were officially the 10th richest club in the world, with a revenue of €532.6m.
#9. Chelsea (€589.4m)
Todd Boehly has been splashing the cash since arriving in west London, but he's only following a pattern of lavish expenditure, with Chelsea crowned the highest spenders in the Premier League over the past decade. At the same time, they're clearly raking in plenty of cash from broadcasting, ticket and merchandise sales all over the world, and the Deloitte Football Money League recorded their revenue for 2022/23 at €589.4m
#8. Tottenham Hotspur (€631.5m)
Progression off the field, with a brand new home stadium and other advanced infrastructure put in place, has left many Spurs fans positive about the future. And in terms of finances, they've pushed themselves into the big leagues, generating more revenue in 2022/23 than both their main London rivals Chelsea and Arsenal, with an income of €631.5m.
#7. Liverpool (€682.9m)
Out of the top 10, Liverpool experienced the greatest drop-off in terms of year-on-year revenue rankings, falling from 3rd to 7th in the list. This decline in revenue comes largely as a result of the men's first team's decline in form during the 2022/23 season, with a lack of Champions League football this campaign and a disappointing performance in other cup competitions of late. Regardless, Liverpool are still one of the world's highest-earning clubs, registering €682.9m worth of revenue.
#6. Bayern Munich (€744m)
The biggest, most successful and most wealthy team in Germany by quite some distance, Bayern Munich are a giant club and their revenue streams show it, with the 2022/23 league champions bringing in €744m during the most recent financial period. They may have lost their Bundesliga crown to Bayer Leverkusen for 2023/24, but their financial might continues to be far greater than any other German club.
#5. Manchester United (€745.8m)
The mismanagement of Manchester United's men's team in recent years has been well documented, and the club's owners have received plenty of criticism as a result. It's thought that they are failing to invest in the future of the club, despite the fact that the Red Devils' various income streams mean that they generated €745.8m in 2022/23 — some fans are concerned about where all the money is going.
#4. Barcelona (€800.1m)
Barcelona were unable to retain their La Liga title for the 2023/24 season, and competing with a resurgent Real Madrid team continues to cause difficulties. In terms of wealth, Barcelona are the fourth-richest club in the world with 2022/23 revenue standing at a whopping €800.1m; however, they're still not La Liga's richest outfit.
#3. PSG (€801.8m)
Qatari investment over the past 13 has transformed Paris Saint-Germain into France's most successful club. And while plenty of money has been pumped into the club, the result is it's generating lots of revenue — €801.8m of it to be precise. This is the first time PSG have been in the world's top three richest clubs, and it's largely due to an investment made into the commercial subsidiary of Ligue de Football Professional.
#2. Manchester City (€825.9m)
Six of the world's top 10 richest clubs are in the Premier League, but Manchester City are by far and away the most profitable business of the lot. A revenue of €825.9m for the 2022/23 season represented their highest ever income for a season, thanks largely to their excellent performance in both the UEFA Champions League and the Premier League (and the abundant broadcast revenue that came as a result).
#1. Real Madrid (€831.4m)
For 2022/23, Madrid surpassed Manchester City and became the highest revenue-generating club in the world with a record figure of €831m. This is largely thanks to the club's strong retail performance and higher stadium attendance, with the Bernabeu's huge size meaning it's capable of generating massive revenue on matchdays. This is the first time since 2017/18 that Real Madrid have been declared the richest club in the world.
However, there are rules in place to try to balance things out so that the insanely wealthy cannot dominate the world of football completely. The most well-known financial rule that impacts rich clubs like Manchester City, Newcastle United and Paris Saint-Germain is financial fair play. Check out our guide to FFP for more information on this subject.