The Soccerex Football Finance 100 index examined the financial strength of the world's football clubs, part of a sports industry gaining the attention of wealth managers.

English Premier League side Manchester City was ranked the world’s most financially strong football club, according to Soccerex’s Football Finance 100.

Money in football has got to great heights over the last decade, and in recent years, the wealth management industry has increased its profile within the sport to gain new prospective clients and business ventures.

The Soccerex football index demonstrates the financial power of football clubs across different continents. The top 30 in the report features clubs from Europe, China and North America. Soccerex examined each club through five categories (players values, fixed assets, cash in bank, owner potential investment, net debt) to reach an overall FFI score out of 5.

Alongside Man City, with a FFI score of 4.883, in the world’s top five financially strong clubs were Arsenal (4.559), French side Paris Saint-Germain (4.128), Chinese club Guangzhou Evergrande (3.423) and Tottenham Hotspur (2.591).

As the world’s most financially strong club, City’s players were worth €637 million ($763 million) in market value, the club had €534 million in fixed assets, €75 million in cash and €15 million in net debt. The club’s owners are worth around €30 billion. The Abu Dhabi group owns 87 per cent of the club, and China Media Capital owns 13 per cent.

The club with the most owner potential investment was Guangzhou Evergrande, which equated to €32 billion. Around 56.1 per cent of the club is owned by the Evergrande Group, 37.81 per cent is owned by the Alibaba Group and just over six per cent is owned by minority shareholders. Guangzhou Evergrande is the first Asian and highest-placed non-European club in the rankings.

Within the top 30 clubs, 26.7 per cent were based in the UK (Man City, Arsenal, Tottenham, Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Leicester City and Everton). Surprisingly, the US had the second biggest percentage of financially sound football teams with 16.7 per cent (LA Galaxy, Seattle Sounders, New York Red Bulls, New York City and New England Revolution). It shows that even despite football not being the country’s biggest sport, the US does have financial power to become a force.

Spanish clubs Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid and Valencia made up 13.3 per cent of the top 30. Germany had the same percentage of clubs in the top 30, with Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig and Bayer Leverkusen.

France and Italy were joint on ten per cent, with giants such as PSG, Juventus, Monaco and Inter Milan all part of the list.

There were two clubs from the Eastern bloc in the top 30, Russia’s Zenit St Petersburg and Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk. 

The owners of the top 30 clubs, as defined by this report, have a net worth of over €366 billion.

The Soccerex Football Finance 100 revealed that owners of the top 100 ranked clubs across the world have a combined net worth of just over €475 billion. In China, the net worth of the owners of the nine largest clubs amounts to €60 billion, while in the US, the richest owners’ wealth totals some €26 billion.

Sports wealth planning is starting to become a mainstream segment within the wealth management industry, as more money is pumped into the world of football, tennis, Formula 1 and rugby. This publication has spoken to various institutions on the subject, including Kleinwort Hambros, RBC Wealth Management and Coutts.