Manchester United have suffered the most transfer losses in Europe over the last decade, according to CIES Football Observatory, a Swiss-based research institute.
Since 2012, United have spent more than a billion euros in the red, more than rivals Manchester City.
According to the analysis, the Red Devils spent 1.545 billion euros on transfers and earned 470 million euros in player sales.
Manchester United are gradually becoming one of the average clubs in the Premier League that have to wait for years before they can win a major title. The last time the Premier League giants won a major title was in 2017 when the club’s former coach Jose Mourinho led the club to beat Ajax 2-1 to win the 2016-2017 Europa League title.
Since then, it has been four years and 257 days that Manchester United and the club’s players touched a major title. Despite that, the club has spent £640 million to recruit players in the last five years.
The top 20 clubs include fourteen Premier League clubs.
United established a Premier League transfer record when they paid £89.5 million for Paul Pogba in 2016 and are expected to get no compensation for the midfielder, whose contract expires at the end of the season.
Among the other high-profile signings are Anthony Martial (£36 million) in 2015 and Donny van de Beek (£40 million) in 2020. Both players were loaned out in January.
Manchester City are second in the table with a negative net spend of 984 million euros. City spent 1.699 billion euros on players over the last decade but generated 715 billion in revenue.
Paris St-Germain finished third with 914 million euros in losses, while Barcelona finished fourth with 650 million. Arsenal rounded out the top five with a loss of 583 million.
On their official website on valuation of players, CIES Football Observatory stated;
“Issue number 362 of the Weekly Post presents the traditional bi-annual list of the 100 big-5 league players with the top estimated transfer value according to the CIES Football Observatory algorithm. The Real Madrid’s Brazilian rising star Vinícius Júnior (€166 million) outranks Phil Foden and Erling Haaland. These figures are irrespective of eventual buy-out clauses in players’ contract.”
www.football-observatory.com
“Per position, the top transfer values were calculated for Gianluigi Donnarumma among goalkeepers, Rúben Dias for centre backs, Alphonso Davies among full backs, Jude Bellingham for defensive midfielders, Florian Wirtz for attacking ones, as well as for Vinícius Júnior among forwards. Kevin de Bruyne has the greatest valuation among players aged 30 or over, while Kylian Mbappé tops the list for players running out of contract next June.”
www.football-observatory.com
“The values were calculated using the exclusive econometric approach developed by the CIES Football Observatory research team. A paper presenting the method has been recently published in the peer-review and open access journal Economies. It can be accessed here. The transfer value estimates for all big-5 league players are also available in free access here.”
www.football-observatory.com
