Does this include Mario Balotelli too?
We had to do a double take this morning when we saw this tweet.
Liverpool's squad cost more to assemble than Bayern Munich's, according to figures from the CIES Football Observatory.
— Richard Jolly 🇺🇦 (@RichJolly) September 4, 2015
We just couldn’t get our head around it at first, but then you think of all the money Brendan Rodgers has spent, and the cash splurged by Kenny Dalglish before him and all the players he inherited and how skank an awful lot of them turned out to be.
Oh and the fact that of the 21 players signed under Rodgers, he’s shipped 13 of them out on loan, including £20m man Lazar Markovic.
So when you think of it then it starts to make sense.
The stat means that Liverpool have also spent more than €30m more than Juventus, a team that were in last season’s Champions league final against Barcelona.
And then you see this tweet and you’re slackjawed again.
Sunderland's cost only €12 million less than Dortmund's & almost twice as much as Sevilla's. Money well spent, I'd say.
— Richard Jolly 🇺🇦 (@RichJolly) September 4, 2015
The figures from the CIES Football Observatory compare the cost of assembling the various squads of teams from all across Europe’s top five leagues. There is no surprise that Manchester City top the Premier League’s most expensive squad at a whopping €560m.
Manchester United are just behind on €533m and Chelsea then third on €407m.
Things across Europe aren’t much cheaper with Real Madrid’s squad the most expensive in Europe at an insane €587m with Barcelona trailing behind on €394m.
Big spending PSG’s squad cost €525m with their closest competitor Monaco at £152m.
The figures are pretty staggering when you think of how teams are expected to compete with sides who can spend €40m or €50m at the drop of a hat.
The graph also shows the incredible paucity of money being spent by Italian clubs.
H/t: CIES
