Manchester United overtake Real Madrid to become world’s most valuable football club as Premier League sides dominate

MANCHESTER UNITED have overtaken Real Madrid to become the world’s most valuable football club – as Premier League sides dominate football’s rich list.

Despite the Red Devils finishing sixth last season in a poor campaign, they become the first club ever worth £2.7billion in enterprise value.

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Enterprise value is determined by accountants KPMG based on how much they believe it would cost to buy a football club, based on a variety of criteria.

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It is only KPMG’s second year of the report, which saw Real come out on top last year – and looks at the finances of 39 clubs.

The figure is reached using the club’s popularity on social media, revenues for the 2014/15 and 2015/16 seasons and success in European competitions.

After that, the teams were ranked in order to judge how much it would cost to buy any of the clubs, taking into account the business’s total debt owed.

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Despite United, owned by the American Glazer family, owing half a billion pounds, they still came out ahead of Real in second and Barcelona in third.

And English sides dominate, with six of the top ten playing in the Premier League. Much of that is due to the huge TV rights deals and what KPMG describe as “more sustainable management models”.

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United have not hit the heights on the pitch in the last few seasons that they were used to, but have still become the first club to be worth over €3billion - or £2.7billion.

Bayern Munich stay in fourth, while Manchester City nip ahead of top flight rivals Arsenal to take fifth sport, both with enterprise values of just under £1.7billion.

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Chelsea, Liverpool, Juventus and Tottenham fill the next four positions to make the top ten, which means six of them are from the Premier League.

The other two English teams on the list are Leicester in 16th fresh from their unlikely title win in 2015/16 and Everton in 17th.

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This time around, ten clubs were valued in excess of €1billion (£867million), two more than in 2016 - Spurs and Juventus.

The trend of English clubs dominating this list is set to continue, given the Premier League's improved 2016-19 domestic TV deal, and foreign broadcast rights and commercial revenue such as shirt sponsorship.