The top 100 income-generating academies in the world have been revealed and Forest's features
Brian Dick Reach Football Correspondent
13:41, 02 Apr 2026
Former Nottingham Forest player Brennan Johnson during the Carabao Cup 2nd Round match between the Reds and Burnley at the City Ground, Nottingham on August 30, 2023
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Brennan Johnson left Nottingham Forest to join Tottenham in August 2023 (Image: MI News/NurPhoto)
As Nottingham Forest continually invest in their first team squad, with 24 senior players brought permanently to the City Ground in the last two seasons alone, the difficulty in bringing through homegrown players only increases.
However, there is still a lot of good work being done at the Nigel Doughty Academy, one of 29 Category One set-ups in England and one with a good reputation for developing youngsters.
Indeed growing your own isn’t a challenge that faces only Forest, up and down the country the gap between development and first team football seems to yawn ever wider.
Nevertheless work goes on and the next best thing to having someone come through the system to captain the senior side – a la Ryan Yates – is to see them go on and develop elsewhere, particularly if the sale generates a decent fee.
Some clubs are better than others and the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post has listed the top 100 clubs worldwide that have earned the most from transferring players from their youth academies over the last decade.
According to CIES’ figures Forest have generated €124million over ten years and €68m in the last five. All in all they have produced and sold ten players, with Brennan Johnson being the poster-boy. The winger brought in a reported £47.5m when he was sold to Tottenham in September 2023.
The figure of €124m places Forest 11th among English clubs, behind Chelsea who have amassed a whopping €442m from 33 players over the last ten years. Manchester City are second having brought in €404m from 35 players.
English clubs ranking in world’s top 100 per €m
Chelsea 442m
Man City 404m
Aston Villa 303m
Man Utd 271m
Arsenal 270m
Tottenham 268m
Liverpool 222m
West Ham 170m
Leicester City 170m
Leeds United 165m
Nottingham Forest 124m
Everton 119m
Southampton 118m
Norwich 106m
Brighton 104m
Fulham 86m
Wolves 85m
Newcastle Utd 73m
Sheffield Utd 72m
Bristol City 71m
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Training clubs are defined as the first ones where players spent at least three seasons between the ages of 15 and 21. The sums show include add-ons. Figures are from July 1, 2016.
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Across the world Benfica have brought in the most with €589m, Ajax second on €454m and Chelsea third. Forest rank 60th in the world, according to CIES, ahead of the likes of AC Milan and Roma.
As things stand Forest’s Under-21 team sit 17th in the 29 team Premier League 2. As well as Yates, Zach Abbott has played Premier League football this season, the 19-year-old made his Reds debut in 2022 and has made ten senior appearances this season.
His Premier League debut came in the 3-0 defeat to Everton in December last year and his first start came against Leeds in February.