Chelsea's squad at the close of the 2024 financial year became the most expensive ever assembled in Europe, according to UEFA's latest report.
The "European Club Finance and Investment Landscape" report revealed Chelsea spent 1.656 billion euros ($1.79 billion) on transfers, easily surpassing Manchester United's 2023 squad cost of 1.42 billion euros and Real Madrid’s 1.33 billion euros in 2020.
Since Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital acquired the club in 2022, Chelsea has signed 41 players. However, despite their hefty spending, the club’s investments have yet to yield significant on-field success, finishing sixth in the Premier League last season and currently sitting in fifth.
According to the report, which analyzes all of Europe's top divisions, Real Madrid (1.073 billion euros), Manchester City (854 million euros), Paris Saint-Germain (808 million euros), Manchester United (771 million euros), and Bayern Munich (765 million euros) had the highest revenues in 2023.
The Premier League had nine teams among the top 20 earning clubs, with an average revenue of 357 million euros and approximate aggregate revenue of 7.15 billion euros.
Spain's La Liga was second with revenues of 3.7 billion euros, followed by Germany's Bundesliga (3.6 billion euros), Italy's Serie A (2.9 billion euros), and France's Ligue 1 (2.4 billion euros), rounding out the top five.
The top 20 clubs have been relatively stable across the last decade, with all of the current top 20 featuring in the top 25 in 2014.
English clubs reported just over 7.1 billion euros of revenue in 2023, but the size of the top clubs meant the mean club revenue (357 million euros) is considerably higher than the median (10th-11th place) club revenue of 245 million euros.
"This 'typical' median English club revenue has 60% more revenue than the typical German club and three times the revenue of the typical club in Italy and Spain, principally due to the large TV revenue distributions enjoyed by all top-division clubs in England," the report said.
Europe's 700-plus top-division clubs recorded aggregate revenue of 26.8 billion euros in 2023, with England's 20 top-flight clubs reporting almost double the revenue (97% more) of the second- and third-highest leagues, Spain and Germany.
England and Germany have by far the largest attendance figures, which is reflected in their median gate revenues of 29.1 million euros and 23.7 million euros, respectively.
Arsenal (153 million euros), Manchester United (129 million euros), Tottenham (123 million euros), and Liverpool (108 million euros) were among the eight European clubs that reported more than 100 million euros in gate revenue in 2023.
