January 12 – The latest report from the CIES football observatory has ranked Liga Portugal side Benfica as the club with the most profitable academy in world football.
In an football business dominated by colossal fees for the world’s best players – further empohasised by some of the numbers being talked about for player sales in the January transfer window that opened last week – football academies have become an increasingly important source of income for clubs.
Big money academy player sales such as Joao Felix, Ruben Dias and Gonçalo Ramos developed on the Benfica campus (pictured) have contributed to Benfica’s staggering €516 million in revenue since 2014 on exclusively academy talent.
Benfica have also not been shy to sell their top players, commanding massive fees for non-academy talent in Enzo Fernandez and Darwin Nunez just last season.
Benfica tops the ranking by some distance, with Ajax (€376 million) and Olympique Lyon (€370 million) ranked second and third, with only €6m splitting the two.
Making up the top ten are three English clubs (Chelsea, Tottenham, and Manchester City), a second Portuguese team (Sporting CP), along with Real Madrid (fourth), AS Monaco (sixth, largely attributed to revenues from Kylian Mbappé’s transfer to Paris St-Germain), and Italy’s Atalanta (tenth).
Olympique Lyon, who sit 15th in the Ligue 1 table after a disappointing opening to the season, have the most profitable academy in the Big 5 leagues.
Real Madrid, Chelsea, Atalanta and Bayer Leverkusen join Lyon as the top academy sellers by Big 5 country.
Brazil’s Flamengo earn the title of most profitable non-European academy having generated €228 million from solely academy sales since 2014. Hot on their heels is Argentinian side River Plate, closely trailing with a substantial €223 million in earnings.
CIES’s study presents the 100 clubs with the most profitable academies in the world in terms of revenues generated over the last ten years by the transfer of players who spent at least three seasons there between the ages of 15 and 21.
To see the full ranking click here.
Contact the writer of this story, Harry Ewing, at moc.l1714785784labto1714785784ofdlr1714785784owedi1714785784sni@g1714785784niwe.1714785784yrrah1714785784