The Soccerex index demonstrates the financial power of soccer clubs across different continents. The top 30 in the report features clubs from Europe, China and North America.

There were five Major League Soccer teams placed in the world's top 30 financially-strong soccer clubs, according to Soccerex’s Football Finance 100. English Premier League side Manchester City was ranked the world’s wealthiest soccer club.

Money injected into soccer has reached great heights over the last decade and, in recent years, the wealth management industry has increased its profile within the sport to gain new clients and expand business links. 

The Soccerex Index demonstrates the financial power of soccer clubs across different continents. The top 30 in the report feature clubs from Europe, China and North America. Soccerex examined each club through five categories - players values, fixed assets, cash in bank, owner potential investment, net debt - to reach an overall FFI score out of 5.

Within the top 30 clubs, 26.7 per cent were based in the UK (Man City, Arsenal, Tottenham, Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Leicester City and Everton). Surprisingly, the US had the second biggest percentage of financially sound soccer teams with 16.7 per cent (LA Galaxy, Seattle Sounders, New York Red Bulls, New York City and New England Revolution). It shows that even despite soccer not being the country’s biggest sport, the US does have financial power to become a force.

Alongside Manchester City, which scored 4.883, the world’s richest clubs were Arsenal (4.559), French side Paris Saint-Germain (4.128), Chinese club Guangzhou Evergrande (3.423) and Tottenham Hotspur (2.591).

As the world’s most financially strong club, City’s players were worth €637 million ($763 million) in market value, the club had €534 million in fixed assets, €75 million in cash and €15 million in net debt. The club’s owners, which also owns US club New York City FC, are worth around €30 billion. The Abu Dhabi group owns 87 per cent of the club, and China Media Capital owns 13 per cent.

The club with the most owner potential investment was Guangzhou Evergrande, which equated to €32 billion. Around 56.1 per cent of the club is owned by the Evergrande Group, 37.81 per cent is owned by the Alibaba Group and just over six per cent is owned by minority shareholders. Guangzhou Evergrande is the first Asian and highest-placed non-European club in the rankings.

Spanish clubs Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid and Valencia made up 13.3 per cent of the top 30. Germany had the same percentage of clubs in the top 30, with Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig and Bayer Leverkusen.

France and Italy were joint on ten per cent, with giants such as PSG, Juventus, Monaco and Inter Milan all part of the list. There were two clubs from the Eastern bloc in the top 30, Russia’s Zenit St Petersburg and Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk. 

The owners of the top 30 clubs, as defined by this report, have a net worth of over €366 billion.

The Soccerex Soccer Finance 100 revealed that owners of the top 100 ranked clubs across the world have a combined net worth of just over €475 billion. In China, the net worth of the owners of the nine largest clubs amounts to €60 billion, while in the US, the richest owners’ wealth totals some €26 billion.

Sports wealth planning is starting to become a mainstream segment within the wealth management industry, as more money is pumped into the world of soccer, tennis, Formula 1 and rugby. Our sister publication WealthBriefing has spoken to various institutions on the subject, including RBC Wealth Management.