MANCHESTER UNITED have been named the world’s most valuable football club worth an astonishing £1.4billion – as six Premier League sides make the top ten.
Real Madrid (1.2bn) beat Barcelona (£1.1bn) to finish second in Brand Finance’s Football 50, with Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich (£1bn) pipping Manchester City to fourth.
But is it then the English top-flight clubs come into their own, with Liverpool coming sixth, Chelsea next, Arsenal eighth and Spurs tenth.
City, who won the league for the first time under Pep Guardiola this season, saw their brand value increase by a massive 310 per cent from 2017.
They are now worth £953million.
Liverpool (£862m), who can win the Champions League by beating Real Madrid in Kiev, were up 296 per cent.
Burnley also enjoyed a 57 per cent spike after their shock qualification for the Europa League.
Chelsea are worth £856m, Arsenal £776m, Paris Saint-Germain £654m and Spurs £548m.
Real Madrid are the biggest team on social media, with 108.1 million Facebook fans and 49.8 million Twitter followers.
Brand Finance looked at football in emerging markets China, India and the United States.
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India is the world’s second most populous country and footie fans’ favourite team there is Man Utd.
In the US it is Barcelona and in China it is Guangzhou Evergrande.
India also has the biggest fans, with some 18 per cent there fitting in the ‘fanatic’ category – defined as “not missing a single match”.
Barcelona boast the squad with the highest value, according to the report.
They claim the La Liga champions’ entire squad – which includes the likes of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Ousmane Dembele – is worth £946m.
Real Madrid have the second most expensively assembled squad at £867m with Man City (£794m), PSG (£699m) and Man Utd (£696m) following close behind.
Bryn Anderson, Director at Brand Finance, said: “The Premier League remains the most visible and most intensely marketed football league worldwide, hence its heavy presence in the Brand Finance Football 50.”
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