Value of top clubs spirals

The value of English football’s biggest clubs is spiralling.  The new investment attaches a valuation of around £5.5bn to Liverpool, eclipsing the 2024 arrival of Sir Jim Ratcliffe into Manchester United, where a 25 per cent stake had valued the club at £4.3bn.

The figures are stretching beyond what most industry experts — such as Forbes and Sportico — consider to be the value of these clubs. International advisory firm Football Benchmark, another to compile annual assessments of Europe’s biggest clubs, valued Liverpool at between £3.9bn and £4.2bn in its 2026 rankings, with Chelsea listed at between £2.5bn and £2.7bn.

More than £3.1bn was distributed centrally among the Premier League’s 20 clubs last season, almost double the £1.63bn handed out in the 2015-16 campaign. It means the biggest clubs, including Liverpool, can now expect to generate annual revenues north of £700m, with aspirations to eventually follow Real Madrid beyond the £1bn mark in the years to come. Matchday revenues are also rising, along with commercial gains. The latter for Liverpool was £323m in their most recent accounts (2024-25), five times what it was at the point of FSG’s arrival in 2010.

“The scarcity value of owning a Premier League club is essentially driving up the prices,” Christina Philippou, associate professor in accounting and sport finance at the University of Portsmouth told The New York Times.

“English football clubs, even at Premier League level, aren’t supremely profitable. In fact, they’re likely not to be profitable at all. That makes these valuations very hard to understand unless you look at the more exogenous factors.

“If you look at the kind of people around sports franchises, a lot of them are in tech and those types of industries. It is more about diversification into an industry they feel is less likely to be impacted and more likely to retain value.”

“The commercial aspects are what you’re looking at to drive valuations above and beyond what we can measure on an income statement and balance sheet,” Dan Plumley, senior lecturer in sport finance at Loughborough University told T he Athletic,

“These U.S. investors still see Premier League clubs being undervalued in comparison to the U.S. franchises and see value to extract, whether that’s through new broadcast initiatives or subscriptions, monetising fans all around the globe. They still see growth in those markets.”

England’s two biggest clubs, Manchester United and Liverpool, were the only two to feature in Forbes’ most recent top 50 most valuable sports teams, with Liverpool considered to be on par with the Detroit Lions and Toronto Raptors in joint 48^th

A mid-table Premier League club might be broadly valued at twice its annual revenues, with the elite clubs valued at five or six times their revenue. Liverpool’s value in 2026 is more like eight times that. Chelsea, meanwhile, would be pushing 10 times if £5bn is being sought.

Whether it is Bhatia and Bezos arriving at Liverpool or Clearlake considering an expanded shareholding at Chelsea, however, there is a sense that these opportunities are rare. There have been small changes to the ownership structures of Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur in the last decade but without control ever being relinquished. The structures of Europe’s other big hitters, such as Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich, also place them out of reach.

There is no indication of a slowdown, at least for the elite. The Premier League has a range of bumper broadcast deals, domestic and international, in place until 2029, while UEFA has also struck its own new and improved TV partnerships, beginning next season and running through to 2031. Those offer financial insulation to the top clubs, even if the competitive Champions League qualification process introduces potential variables.

Leicester, though, stand as an example of the limits. Unlike American sports, where franchises are locked into profitable leagues, there will always be the threat of relegation and shrinking revenues that trouble those considering entry into the English game. Tottenham came perilously close to falling out of the Premier League last season, a fate that would have dramatically altered their valuation.

In the same breath, though, there are the guarantees that hold an attraction. Manchester United have failed to win the Premier League since 2012-13 but have a supporter base like few in the world. A lack of silverware has not stopped the club’s value building and it remains one of the most recognisable brands in sport. Despite all the loss-making in the Premier League, it retains a level of certainty in a world where live sport holds an increasingly unique position.