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The Manchester United squad in the last financial year is the most expensive ever recorded, according to a UEFA report into football clubs’ finances released on Thursday.
United came third in the Premier League last season, as well as winning the Carabao Cup, in Erik ten Hag’s first season in charge, although he did so with a squad costing a total €1.422 billion ($1.543bn), the UEFA said.
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The squad included Antony (€95 million), Harry Maguire (€93m), Jadon Sancho (€85m) and Casemiro (€82m).
UEFA’s European Club Finance and Investment Landscape report read: “Manchester United FC’s squad at the end of the club’s 2023 financial year (i.e. before the summer 2023 transfer window) is officially the most expensive ever assembled, with a combined transfer cost of €1,422m. They have surpassed the Real Madrid squad of 2020, which cost €1,332m.”
The figures included all of Europe’s biggest aside from Chelsea, Everton and Leicester City, whose financial data for 2023 has not been released, meaning the roughly €993m Chelsea spent from the summer of that year to August 2023 was not counted.
Chelsea’s 2022 squad was the third-highest total listed, behind the 2023 squad of United and treble-winners Manchester City, respectively,
Meanwhile, the report said more than 300 clubs were in ownership groups involving multiple teams in a trend driven by American investors that could threaten the integrity of European games.
UEFA detailed the growing popularity of “multi-club ownership” — with investors, if not always the fans — in its annual analysis of the European football economy it predicts was worth about €26bn in revenue for clubs in 2023.
Multi-club groups led to an “increased risk of seeing two clubs with the same owner or investor facing each other in the same competition, creating potential integrity risks at the European level,” UEFA director of research Andrea Traverso acknowledged in the 118-page report.
The report was published while two teams among 13 in the Abu Dhabi-backed City Football Group network — City and Girona — are second, respectively, in the Premier League and LaLiga standings and in shape to qualify for next season’s Champions League.
Information from the Associated Press contributed to this report.