Premier League's Most Valuable Club Revealed As Man Utd Overtaken At Top
By Joburg Post
Manchester City have replaced local rivals Manchester United as the Premier League's most valuable club, according to a new study.
City were valued £2.364 billion for the 2017-18 season, representing a rise of £385 million from the previous year.
Meanwhile the Red Devils were given a valuation of at £2.087 billion after an estimated drop of £376 million.
The report from the University of Liverpool's Centre for Sports Business Group said that United's decline could be explained by "higher wages and lower profits."
In Deloitte's list of the world's richest clubs, which was published in January, only Spanish sides Real Madrid and Barcelona finished higher than United.
However, while the Deloitte list only based on revenue, the university's data was also calculated based on profits, non-recurring costs, average profits on player sales over a three-year period, net assets, wage control and proportion of seats sold.
"Manchester United still had the highest revenue of any club in the Premier League but the increased costs meant they relinquished the top spot in the valuation table,"
the study explained.
Meanwhile, the research put City's increase down to "a combination of higher revenue and lower wages" while adding that the club was helped by "removing some high earners from the wage bill."
It determined that the two Manchester clubs were the only teams with a value in excess of £2 billion for the 2017-18 season as the overall value of the Premier League decreased by 1.6%.
The study also found that the overall value of the top division clubs to be £14.7 billion with the top six providing a combined £10.9 billion, almost three-quarters (74%) of the total.
Spurs (£1.837bn), Liverpool (£1.615bn) and Chelsea (£1.615bn) have all witnessed big increases while a lack of Champions League football caused Arsenal's value to drop from a third highest £1.822bn to a sixth-placed 1.368bn.
Despite the gap between Arsenal and seventh-placed Burnley reaching almost £1bn, the report described The Clarets as "arguably the most sensibly run club in the Premier League financially".