Most profitable football club academies worldwide – Interesting for Newcastle United fans… | OneFootball

An interesting new report on football club academies has just been published.

The report is from the CIES Football Observatory and has named the 100 football club academies worldwide, that have generated the most money.

The report has totalled the revenues generated over the last ten years by the transfer of players who spent at least three seasons there between the ages of 15 and 21.

The CIES Football Observatory report stating:

‘Portuguese side Benfica are clearly in the lead with €516 million (all totals in euros).

Ajax (€376 million) and Olympique Lyonnais (€370 million) complete the podium.

Also in the top ten are three English clubs (Chelsea, Tottenham and Manchester City).’

These are the top 20 worldwide…

I went through the full top 100 worldwide and picked out all the English clubs, there were 21 in total:

€347m Chelsea

€256m Tottenham

€254m Man City

€203m Aston Villa

€199m Liverpool

€181m Arsenal

€174m Man U

€165m West Ham

€158m Southampton

€122m Nottingham Forest

€119m Leicester

€118m Everton

€93m Leeds

€91m Brighton

€84m Wolves

€71m Fulham

€64m Bristol City

€63m Norwich

€56m Sheffield United

€56m Crystal Palace

€53m Swansea

It has become increasingly the case that many of the top clubs in England, especially Chelsea, are running their football club academies almost as separate businesses. With seemingly the idea of generating cash at least as important as bringing young players through to the first team.

That Chelsea figure in the past ten years equates to £298.5m generated in revenues by selling such players and this seems to be simply accelerating. Selling young players, especially those who cost nothing in transfer fees, gives massive extra room to manoeuvre when it comes to FFP.

This is the massive factor in how Chelsea believe they can get away with the outrageous amounts spent by the new owners on players.

For Newcastle United fans, this is simply yet another area where a decade and a half of Mike Ashley has left NUFC with such a gap to close.

Investment in football club academies clearly is very profitable.

Just look at the top English clubs in this report when it comes to generating cash through selling academy trained players, all of the ‘big six’ are in the top seven and if not for Villa with the massive £100m (€116m) Grealish fee making up more than half their total, the ‘big six’ would fill all top six places.

Of course, the ideal scenario is that your academy produces countless quality players, some making it into your first team squad for the long-term, whilst others end up sold and that money reinvested plus the serious extra FFP benefits the sales bring.

Just look at Man City, they are drawing massive benefits from their academy, the likes of Phil Foden in the first team whilst Cole Palmer was sold for £45m in the summer.

Newcastle United didn’t even feature anywhere in the top 100 football club academies worldwide when it came to generating cash, including not featuring in the top 21 English (and Welsh) clubs. Who knows what the actual NUFC revenues generated these past ten years would have been? Andy Carroll of course predating this report and I struggle to think of many academy products since then that have generated much (any?) money.

Newcastle United are putting significant time, personnel and cash into the academy side of things, one of Dan Ashworth’s key areas to improve.

Pure natural talent has seen Sean Longstaff, Elliot Anderson and Lewis Miley force their way through into becoming quality players, despite the efforts of Mike Ashley to stifle that, by the denial of investment in the academy side.