📸 France Football have ranked the top 30 football clubs in the world | OneFootball

This is bound to generate a bit of debate.

French magazine France Football – the guys behind the Ballon d’Or – have come up with a definitive ranking of the top 30 clubs in world football, and it’s interesting to say the least.

Each club has been awarded points based on factors such as player analysis (trophies, Ballon d’Ors won etc.), TV audience, social media reach, stadium attendance, revenue, spending, club market value and finally, historical importance.

The magazine says the “historical importance” score is purely subjective and they evaluated 85 clubs in total before whittling the list down to 30.

So without further ado, here is the ranking …

It perhaps won’t surprise you to learn that Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United make up the top three, in that order.

Perhaps the biggest shock in the top 10 is that Manchester City are above Arsenal whereas Egyptian club Al Ahly’s presence in the top 30 is bound to raise a few eyebrows, especially considering they are ranked higher than the likes of Roma and Galatasaray.

Meanwhile, the highest ranked South American club is Boca Juniors in 18th but while fellow Argentine side Independiente made the cut, River Plate are notable by their absence.

But overall, it’s difficult to find too many faults in the list.

England is the most represented nation in the ranking with six clubs, while the Netherlands, Portugal, Turkey, Egypt, Mexico and Brazil all have one each.