May 28 – Real Madrid hit a record €7.7 billion Enterprise Value (EV) in Football Benchmark’s 2026 club valuation ranking, €1.8 billion ahead of Barcelona, who are followed by Manchester City who overtook their local rivals Manchester United for the third spot.
Bacelona had the highest rise in this year’s 32 club ranking(+€1.46 billion), while UEFA Champions League finalists Arsenal FC and Paris Saint-Germain FC recorded the third and fourth highest year-on-year absolute EV increases.
While Real Madrid haven’t had their best season for a number of years, missing out on LaLiga to Barcelona and losing to Bayern Munich in the quarter finals of the Champions League, Football Benchmark say their position was nevertheless “supported by sustained elite-level sporting performance, strong commercial momentum, and the ongoing impact of the renovated Santiago Bernabéu on matchday and commercial and other revenues.
Aston Villa showed the strongest relative EV increase with a +41% rise, while PSV Eindhoven and Inter Milan showed growth of +25%. Newcastle United, Galatasaray, Feyenoord Rotterdam, and LOSC Lille entered the top 32 clubs for the first time in 2026. “The leading clubs in European football are increasingly operating on a different economic scale to the wider market. What this year’s report highlights is how difficult it is becoming to consistently compete at the top without the ability to grow global audiences, invest in infrastructure, and continuously reinvest in sporting performance over long periods,” said Andrea Sartori, Founder and CEO of Football Benchmark.
“Economically, the gap between the game’s elite and the wider market is becoming increasingly structural. Clubs can still rise quickly through strong sporting cycles and ambitious ownership, but sustaining a position amongst the elite is becoming more demanding with every cycle of growth.”
The gap between Real Madrid’s €7.7 million valuation at the top the ranking is a massive €7.1 billion to 32nd ranked Real Sociedad.
The aggregate EV of the top 32 clubs reached €72.6 billion in 2026, a 12% increase on 2025 and almost three times the level recorded in the first edition of the report in 2016.
In terms of geographical spread of the clubs in the top 32, nine come from England’s Premier League, with six of them in the top 10. Italy’s Serie have seven clubs ranked and Spain’s LaLiga has four.
“Financial discipline and long-term sustainability are becoming increasingly important and apparent across the industry. The clubs best positioned for long-term success are those capable of combining sporting competitiveness with strong operational control and strategic thinking over time,” said Sartori.
The report highlights the growing concentration of value at the top end of European football, with the top 10 clubs commanding materially higher valuation multiples than the rest of the ranking, with implied EV/revenue multiples ranging from 5.2x to 6.7x, compared to 2.6x to 4.0x for clubs ranked between 21st and 32nd.
This is the 11th edition of the Football Benchmarkreport that ranks the 32 most valuable football clubs in Europe by Enterprise Value (EV). Football Benchmark’s EV calculation begins with a revenue multiple approach that measures the value of a company relative to the revenues that it generates. It then applies its proprietary algorithm using a formula that takes into account five parameters – each with their own specific weight – so that the applied revenue multiplier varies from club to club.
To see the full report, click here.
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