European Top 5: Manchester City has the highest value playing squad (€1.29bn) in 2020-21 (CIES)

Manchester City FC (Premier League) is the club with the highest valuation of the playing squad of the Top 5 leagues in 2020-21, at €1.299bn, according to the CIES Football Observatory in its weekly letter published on 19/04/2021, which presents the ranking of the 98 clubs of the five major European leagues according to the value of their players under contract on the transfer market.

Manchester City FC is ahead of two other Premier League clubs: Manchester United FC (Premier League, €1.161bn) and Chelsea FC (€1.115bn), this trio bringing together the only clubs with a workforce valued at more than one billion euros in 2020-21. A declining figure since, during the estimate made by the CIES during the 2019-20 season, the value of the workforce of five European clubs exceeded the billion euros mark.

In the Top 20 most-valued clubs, the Premier League places eight clubs, the Serie A TIM and Bundesliga four, LaLiga Santander three, and Ligue 1 Uber Eats only one. Paris Saint-Germain (15^th, €603m) is the only French representative, but has experienced a sharp decline compared to the…