European Top 5: Chelsea has the most expensive squad (€1.314bn) in 2025-26 (CIES)

Chelsea FC (Premier League) is the club in the European Top 5 leagues to have spent the most on building its squad for 2025-26, with €1.314bn spent on transfers, according to the CIES Football Observatory in its "Weekly Post", which presents the Top 100 teams according to the cost of assembling their squad for the current season, published on 17/09/2025.

The London club occupies first place in the ranking, as it did in 2024-25. It shares the podium with two other English clubs: Manchester City FC (€1.128bn) and Manchester United FC (€1.071bn), which came first in 2023-24. The top six places in the rankings are held by Premier League teams, with Liverpool FC, Arsenal FC and Tottenham Hotspur FC in fourth, fifth and sixth place respectively. Paris Saint-Germain (Ligue 1 McDonald's), the leading French club, is in 7^th place in 2025-26 (€873m).

Real Madrid CF (€854m), in 8^th place, is the leading LALIGA EA Sports club, four places ahead of Juventus FC (€503m, Serie A Enilive), in 12^th place and the leading Italian club. FC Bayern Munich (€496m), in 13^th place, is the leading…