With the dawning of Financial Fair Play regulations, UEFA saw to it that clubs around Europe cut their massive spending and effectively ensured that transfer outlay would not spiral out of control. With sanctions threatening to remove teams from the Champions League or reduce their squad strength depending on the shortfall, UEFA meant business.
Since 2010, clubs have hence curbed their spending and looked to sell players with profits in mind. While a few clubs did fall short of the expected targets, there were many that made healthy profits from player transfers.
More: Which club has spent the most in the transfer market since Financial Fair Play was introduced?
5) FC Porto – € 382m
Trending
Since 2010, Porto have won the Portuguese Primeira Liga thrice – all three of which came as part of a hat-trick of titles between 2010/11 and 2012/13. The club have a rich history and was arguably the last club that wasn’t a heavyweight that lifted the Champions League title in 2004 under Jose Mourinho.
The club also have a reputation of producing players with the potential to become world class. In turn, they have also signed on many players from the smaller clubs. Their primary source of income hinges on developing players and selling them to the bigger clubs in Europe for a handsome profit.
Since 2010, they have sold players such as Falcao, Hulk, James Rodriguez, Joao Moutinho, Jackson Martinez, Danilo, Alex Sandro, Fernando, Juan Iturbe, Eliaquim Mangala, Nicolas Otamendi, Bruno Alves and Raul Meireles. One look at that list and one wonders what kind of team Porto would have fielded had they retained their top players.
4) Benfica – €414m
Alongside Porto, Benfica have dominated the Portuguese Primeira Liga and have won the league title in the last three seasons. It is no coincidence that in the entire history of the Portuguese league, every winner is either based in Porto or Lisbon.
And Benfica is just another hotbed for finding the talents of the future. But playing in Portugal is only a stepping stone toward bigger leagues that wait to snatch these talents.
Like Porto, they simply cannot afford to hold on to young players. Portugal’s UEFA coefficient has slipped down in recent seasons and they now find themselves in seventh place behind the top five leagues and the Russian Premier League. So they do the next best thing and hold clubs to ransom for their young players – the perfect plan in Portugal.
Benfica’s most famous players sold in recent years include Angel Di Maria, David Luiz, Ramires, Fabio Coentrao, Axel Witsel, Javi Garcia, Nemanja Matic, Nolito, Jan Oblak Lazar Markovic, Andre Gomes, Rodrigo, and, most recently, the young sensation that lit up Euro 2016 – Renato Sanches.
3) Juventus – €415m
With the Serie A crumbling and Italian teams losing steam in the Champions League, the rise of Juventus was a breath of fresh air in Europe and it had to do with the way they went about planning their resurgence. The Calciopoli scandal had relegated The Old Lady to Serie B but they returned soon enough, even though they struggled to topple Mourinho’s Inter Milan.
However, after AC Milan’s ageing squad won one final title in 2010/11, it has all been Juventus in Italy since then. The Turin-based club built their own stadium and that set them apart from the other clubs in Italy who were still playing in state-owned arenas as tenants. With the ability to keep the gate receipts for themselves, Juventus saw their income soar and soon leave the likes of AC Milan and Inter far behind.
Having won the last five Scudetti and also reaching the 2015 Champions League final, there is no question that Juventus have built the best squad in Italy. They did spend the most among teams in Italy but also made some healthy profits from player sales.
Some famous names sold that filled Juve’s cash reserves include Paul Pogba, Arturo Vidal, Alvaro Morata, Carlos Tevez, Roberto Pereyra, Mohamed Sissoko, Sebastian Giovinco, Milos Krasic, Ciro Immobile, Emanuele Giaccherini and Manolo Gabbiadini.
2) Valencia – €432m
La Liga champions just over a decade ago, the fall of Valencia has been one of the saddest football stories from Spain. Los Che’s academy (aka cantera) has been a conveyor belt for talents over the years and they were seen as the only club who could challenge the big two of Real Madrid and Barcelona before the rise of Atletico Madrid.
But as with many promising clubs, financial mismanagement proved to be their undoing. Financing a new stadium proved to be an albatross around their neck and soon they were taking loans just to pay the players.
Eventually, the top talents were sold one by one to the highest bidder to ensure the club’s continuity. Spain internationals such as David Villa and David Silva were the first to be sold followed by the departures of Juan Mata, Jordi Alba, Aritz Aduriz, Roberto Soldado, Nicolas Otamendi, Jeremy Mathieu and Juan Bernat.
The summer of 2016 saw them sell Shkodran Mustafi, Andre Gomes and Paco Alcacer for a combined fee of €105m!
1) Liverpool – €442m
The Reds have spent the last few seasons struggling to qualify for the Champions League. And the primary reason has been a lack of stability at Anfield, something Jurgen Klopp is looking to provide now.
They were a club that spent a lot of money in buying players to suit different managers’ agendas and it had a knock-on effect when the next manager arrived and culled the squad to make way for new signings. Ever since Rafa Benitez moved on, Roy Hodgson, Kenny Dalglish and Brendan Rodgers all came, saw and failed to conquer.
It was the loss of Xabi Alonso that hit them first and it took years for Liverpool’s midfield to recover. Then it was the controversial move by Fernando Torres to Chelsea for a record-breaking fee that seriously hurt the Reds. They also lost Javier Mascherano the same year.
Other players such as Raul Meireles, David N’Gog, Charlie Adam, Alberto Aquilani, Andy Carroll, Dirk Kuyt, Daniel Agger and Pepe Reina were also offloaded. It was the sale of Luis Suarez to Barcelona that eventually saw them recoup a lot of money. And only the next season they sold Raheem Sterling to Manchester City for close to £50m and Fabio Borini to Sunderland.
They capped it off in 2016 with the sale of Christian Benteke, Jordon Ibe and Joe Allen – all to Premier League teams who threw money at the Anfield club to sign them in an what was an inflated market thanks to the highly lucrative television deal that came into effect this season.
Data from CIES Football Observatory
