MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Real Madrid, the most valuable European football club, worth €3.22bn

Real Madrid won the Champions League during the two seasons which the data covers. increasing its enterprise value by 10%.

Real Madrid has overtaken Manchester United and been named most valuable European football club, being worth about €3.22bn (£2.91bn), says KPMG. The Spanish club tops KPMG's study of top sides' “enterprise value”.

The report, based on the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons, studied profitability, broadcasting rights, popularity, sporting potential and stadium value.

Champions League finalists Liverpool and Spurs are in seventh and ninth places in the rankings. And Europa League finalists Chelsea and Arsenal are in sixth and eighth spots.

Manchester City is in fifth place, meaning there are a total of six English clubs in the top 10.

Real Madrid won the Champions League during the two seasons which the data covers. increasing its enterprise value by 10%.

Scottish treble winner Celtic are included in the list of 32 major clubs, the first team from the country to be so.

Andrea Sartori, KPMG's global head of sports and the report's author, said the overall value of the football industry had grown by 9% over the past year.

“The overall enterprise value of the top 32 clubs is driven primarily by an aggregate 5% increase in total operating revenues,” he said.

“On the other hand, staff costs continued to grow too, with the average staff costs-to-revenue ratio of the top clubs increasing by four percentage points, up to 63%.”

The top ten clubs by enterprise value:

♣ Real Madrid - €3.224bn

♣ Manchester United - €3.207bn

♣ Bayern Munich - €2.696bn

♣ Barcelona - €2.676bn

♣ Manchester City - €2.460bn

♣ Chelsea - €2.227bn

♣ Liverpool - €2.095bn

♣ Arsenal - €2.008bn

♣ Tottenham - €1.697bn

♣ Juventus - €1.548bn

Source: KPMG

Mr Sartori added: “At league level, the English Premier League has confirmed its absolute dominance, having nine clubs in the top 32 and accounting for 43% of the total aggregate value.”

The other three English clubs to make the list outside of the top 10 were West Ham United, Leicester City and Everton.

Meanwhile, Inter Milan (15th) leapt up five places to become the second most valuable club in Italy, thanks to a 41% increase in its enterprise value.

This year, 13 clubs were valued in excess of €1bn, one more than in 2018.

And eight clubs reported an enterprise value above €2bn: five from the English Premier League, two from Spain, and one from Germany.

As well as Celtic entering the top 32 for the first time, so do Spanish club Villarreal, with La Liga rivals Valencia and Turkey's cc dropping out.