Man City, PSG, Man United: The 25 most expensive squads in football ranked | OneFootball

Money has never been more prevalent in the beautiful game than in it is right now.

The 21st century has seen several enormously rich owners pump hundreds of millions, billions even, into footballing clubs in pursuit of on-pitch glory.

First it was Florentino Perez, the wealthy Spanish construction tycoon who revolutionised Real Madrid with his Galacticos project.

Next came Roman Abramovich, the Russian that transformed Chelsea from a decent Premier League club to a consistent Premier League force.

More recently, the Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City owners have pioneered the charge as football’s biggest investors – and it seems Newcastle could be set to be next.

But with so much money in football now, and so much investment required to reach the very top, we thought it would be worth looking up which clubs were in fact Europe’s biggest spenders.

The research – which looks at the purchase value of all transfer fees that a club has spent on existing squad players – has provided us with the list of Europe’s 25 most expensive rosters.

All figures are courtesy of Transfermarkt.

25. RB Leipzig (cost of squad €229.03m) 24. AC Milan (€242.62m)23. Bayer Leverkusen (€248.55m)22. Monaco (€262.20m)21. Wolves (€270.20m)20. West Ham (€271.15m)19. AS Roma (€283.40m)18. Tottenham (€290.15m)17. Napoli (€291.13m)16. Aston Villa (€302.07m)15. Borussia Dortmund (€307.60m)14. Newcastle (€318.25m)13. Leicester (€351.82m)12. Everton (€355.15m)11. Bayern Munich (€380.50m)10. Barcelona (€437.90m)9. Atletico Madrid (€461.15m)8. Arsenal (€481.70m)7. Real Madrid (€529.50m)6. Juventus (€540.00m)5. Liverpool (€610.95m)4. Chelsea (€649.80m)3. Manchester United (€769.93m)2. Paris Saint-Germain (€832.90m)1. Manchester City (€985.80m)

Woah. We knew Man City were big spenders, but to blow their nearest rivals out of the water by over 150 million…

Nevertheless, the money has largely been well spent and the club has achieved incredible domestic success over the past decade. The one missing piece in the Citizens trophy cabinet is that illusive Champions League trophy that they have been craving for so long now.

Although, interestingly, they do make up just one of three clubs that have seen a negative return on their investment when it comes to the current market value of their team – the other two being Manchester United and Newcastle.

PSG are the only non-English club able to seize a spot in the top five as they claim the silver medal, which just goes to show the dominance of the Premier League in comparison to the rest of the continent right now.

As a matter of fact, 12 of Europe’s 25 most costly squads are Premier League based, with Everton and Leicester seemingly nipping at the heels of the mighty Bayern Munich!

Now, the Bavarian giants do have a squad value nearly worth more than Leicester and Everton put together so we aren’t suggesting the clubs should be competing, but it certainly makes for interesting reading.

Real Madrid and Barcelona find themselves further down the pecking order than one would expect coming in 7th and 10th – maybe that explains the sheer desperation for the launch of the Super League…

Whilst the bottom half of the list is made up of mainly European challengers across the Serie A and Bundesliga, with the occasional mid-table Premier League team thrown into the mix for good measure.

Watch this space, though, because with Newcastle widely expected to go on a groundbreaking spending spree this summer, this list could get quite the shaking-up come September.

Man City will sign a midfielder! (The Football Terrace):