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Which club is worth more? City or Real?

Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez is in election mode. He says the Spanish football giants are worth €10bn and rising. “In a few years it will be worth €20bn,” he told the Financial Times this week.

He’s not the only one who thinks his club’s value has hit 11 figures. Manchester City chair Khaldoon Al Mubarak, who also leads Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, says the club has multiplied in value since Sheikh Mansour first bought in at an estimated valuation of $100mn-$120mn in 2008.

“If you’re going to sell all this today in the market, you wouldn’t sell it for less than $10 billion minimum,” Khaldoon said in his annual interview published by City. He went on to say the club wasn’t for sale, just to be clear.

So far only the Los Angeles Lakers have hit the $10bn mark, although the Seattle Seahawks might soon join them. Minority deals are getting done in that ball park too.

But can a football team really be worth that much? Real Madrid have been crowned champions of Europe 15 times and champions of Spain 36 times. They also have the highest revenues in the game.

City have recently been the dominant force in football’s richest league. They won the first-ever domestic treble of the Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup. The club set the record points total in 2017-18 before winning four league titles in a row.

Even with ongoing uncertainty from the Premier League’s 115 charges against City over alleged breaches of financial rules, the club view is that their recent record has put them on the same pedestal as Real.

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