January 26 – France’s LOSC Lille and Netherlands’ Ajax head a ranking of clubs that are the smartest traders of non-academy players. At the other end of the scale Barcelona and Chelsea have lost the most money.
Between 2014 and 2023 Lille have made €368 million on buying and selling players who have not graduated through their academy. Ajax have a positive transfer balance of €317 million.
The figures from the CIES Football Observatory show RB Salzburg third in the ranking, just ahead of AS Monaco.
“The top 10 of clubs having generated the most profits from player trading during the last decade also includes two German (RB Leipzig and Eintracht Frankfurt), two Italian (Sassuolo and Atalanta) and two Portuguese teams (Benfica and Sporting CP),” highlight the CIES authors.
Brentford are the highest Premier League team at 26th in the ranking and a positive trading balance of €99 million.
Supposedly permanently impoverished Barcelona showed a whopping -€631 million deficit , way ahead of big (silly?) spending Chelsea’s -€482m loss. Arsenal rank third with a -€436 million loss , ahead of Paris St-Germain (-€410 million), and Manchester United (-€238 million).
CIES reference Manchester City (-€59 million) and Bayern Munich (-€61 million) as having “the best balances among the most competitive teams”.
To see the full rankings click here.
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