Buying a football club is becoming increasingly popular, with the value of the top clubs becoming increasingly dramatically over the past decade. Many are now worth billions.
Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich started the trend of the mega-rich buying and taking control of some of the biggest clubs when he purchased Chelsea in 2003 for £140 million.
According to Transfermarkt, Premier League clubs’ net spend in the summer of 2024 was around a staggering £629.8 million.
While clubs like Manchester City, Chelsea and Manchester United have historically dominated the football scene financially, a takeover in 2021 meant a new club rose to the top of the richest owners list.
The richest football club owner award belongs to the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, who bought an 80% stake in Newcastle United for a staggering £300 million in October 2021.
Saudi’s crown prince, Mohammad bin Salam is head of the fund – one of the largest in the world – which has an estimated worth of $925 billion (around £737.5 billion) as of early 2024, according to Human Rights Watch.
The crown prince himself has a personal wealth of $25 billion (just under £20 billion) as of last year.
The Saudi Arabian takeover of Newcastle drew a lot of criticism from within the sport, who accused its new owners of using the club to detract from the country’s poor human rights record.
But Chelsea Football Club has also been on a spending spree since the new owners – the Clearlake-Boehly consortium – took over in 2022 in a £2.5bn deal. Clearlake Capital currently owns 61.6 percent of Chelsea, with Todd Boehly, Mark Walter and Hansjorg Wyss owning just under 13 percent each.
With these percentages, Clearlake is now worth an eyewatering £67 billion, with Walters worth £9.3 billion. Boehly – who expressed a keen interest in buying out Clearlake is worth £6.7 billion, while Wyss is worth £3.9 billion. These figures total to an impressive £86.9 billion.
Manchester City have also become big spenders since they were taken over by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan in 2008.
The club is owned by City Football Group (CFG), a holding company that is largely owned by the Abu Dhabi United Group, which itself is owned by Sheikh Mansour. It is also owned by Silver Lake, an American technology investment firm.
According to the latest statistics, Sheikh Mansour is worth approximately £23 billion, while Silver Lake has a value of at least £80 billion, making a staggering total of £103 billion at least.
Finally, Manchester United, which is owned by the Glazer family (owning 51.75%) and Sir Jim Ratcliffe – a British engineer and businessman who founded the petrochemicals firm INEOS – who is one of the richest men in the UK. Manchester United’s combined net worth is predicted to be around £16.4 billion.
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