Revealed! The 20 most expensive football teams in Europe

Data: CIES Football Observatory

Inter were somewhat overshadowed by city rivals Milan in the transfer market of summer 2017, but they’ve still spent big in the last few years as they attempt to win Serie A for the first time since 2010.

Christian Vieri, bought from Lazio in 1999, remains their record signing, but Joao Mario (€40m), Gabriel Barbosa (€29.5m) and Matias Vecino (€24m) all commanded large fees - which makes it rather damning that the former two are currently out on loan.

Palace may be battling against relegation from the Premier League this season, but their squad is still one of the most expensively assembled on the continent.

Former Liverpool duo Mamadou Sakho and Christian Benteke account for almost €60m of their total, with Luka Milivojevic, Patrick van Aanholt and Jeff Schlupp also expensive acquisitions made in the last 12 months or so.

The sale of several stars (mainly to Liverpool) in the last few years means Southampton’s net spend is relatively low, but they’ve still assembled one of the priciest squads in Europe.

Sofiane Boufal, Manolo Gabbiadini, Mario Lemina and Wesley Hoedt all cost upwards of €16m, while Jordy Clasie and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg didn’t come cheap either.

The three most expensive acquisitions in Roma’s history – Gabriel Batistuta, Antonio Cassano and Vincenzo Montella – all joined the club before 2002, while numbers four to nine have either retired (Hidetoshi Nakata, Emerson) or are currently plying their trade elsewhere (Mirko Vucinic, Juan Iturbe).

Kevin Strootman, ranked 10th overall, is the costliest member of the current group at €17.5m, followed closely by the €16.6m Gerson and Radja Nainggolan at €15m.

Although Borussia Dortmund sold Ousmane Dembele and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang for big bucks in the last few months, their squad still cost more than all but 15 of their European rivals’.

Andre Schurrle is BVB’s priciest ever signing at €30m, with Mario Gotze (€22m) and Andrey Yarmolenko (€25m) not too far behind.

Monaco shifted away from spending big on established stars a few years back, but their present squad still cost a fair bit to put together.

Keita Balde Diao is the most expensive of the club’s current employees, the former Lazio forward costing €30m in August 2017. Midfielders Joao Moutinho and Youri Tielemans each contributed €25m to Monaco’s tally, while Djibril Sidibe was signed for €15m in 2016.

A transfer ban meant Atletico Madrid were unable to add to their squad in summer 2017, although they did complete deals for Vitolo (€36m) and Diego Costa (€66m).

Diego Simeone’s side remain in the top 15 largely due to signings made before 2017, though, including Kevin Gameiro (€32m) and Antoine Griezmann (€30m).

Milan were not even in the top 25 of this list 12 months ago, but they’ve climbed all the way up to 13th place after an eye-catching summer splurge.

Leonardo Bonucci was the headline addition at just short of €42m, with Andre Silva (€38m), Andre Conti (€25m) and Hakan Calhanoglu (€22m) also commanding sizeable fees.

Daniel Levy may have a reputation for being somewhat parsimonious, yet the Tottenham chairman has sanctioned the spending of €358m on the club’s current set of players.

Davinson Sanchez became the most expensive of those when he signed from Ajax for €40m in August, while Moussa Sissoko, Lucas Moura, Erik Lamela, Son Heung-min and Serge Aurier all cost in excess of €25m.

Ex-Lyon midfielder Corentin Tolisso became Bayern’s priciest player of all time last summer, joining the Bundesliga champions for €41.5m.

That may sound like a rather low figure for a club of Bayern’s standing, but although they have pulled off some excellent deals in recent years (think Thiago Alcantara for €25m), their squad is still among the most expensively assembled in the world. 

Only five clubs in the top 100 increased the price of their squad by more than Everton in the last year.

Romelu Lukaku’s exit knocked €35m off the total, but that was far outweighed by the signings of Gylfi Sigurdsson (€49.4m), Michael Keane (€28.5m), Davy Klaassen (€27m) and Jordan Pickford (€28.5m). Their tally rose further with the January additions of Cenk Tosun and Theo Walcott.

The cost of Arsenal's squad fell from €416m to €403m in the January transfer window, when Alexis Sanchez and Theo Walcott departed the Emirates.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's arrival for €63.75m keeps the Gunners in the top 10, though, with Alexandre Lacazette (€53m), Calum Chambers (€20m), Shkodran Mustafi (€41m) and Granit Xhaka (€45m) all costly additions who remain part of the squad.

The most noteworthy transfer of Juventus’s 2017 transfer window was the sale of Leonardo Bonucci to Milan, but the Italian champions still spent over €130m on Federico Bernardeschi, Douglas Costa, Mattia De Sciglio, Juan Cuadrado, Wojciech Szszesny, Medhi Benatia, Blaise Matuidi and Rodrigo Bentancur.

Those eight new arrivals join Gonzalo Higuain (€90m), Gianluigi Buffon (€53m) and Paulo Dybala (€40m) in pushing Juve’s squad cost close to the €450m mark.

At a cost of €70m, Naby Keita will become Liverpool’s most expensive ever signing when he joins from RB Leipzig this summer.

Even without the Guinean midfielder, the Reds’ squad is one of the priciest around. Mohamed Salah cost €42m last summer and Virgil van Dijk was signed for €79m in the January window, while Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino each fetched fees of €38m or more.

Madrid may have brought in Theo Hernandez and Dani Ceballos last summer, but the value of their squad fell by a mammoth €138m as James Rodriguez, Alvaro Morata, Danilo, Fabio Coentrao and Pepe sought pastures new.

The continued presence of Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale, who together set los Blancos back the best part of €200m – means they remain comfortably in the top 10.

Antonio Conte was left frustrated by Chelsea’s transfer activity both last summer and in January, but he can at least take comfort from the fact that the squad at his disposal has benefited from heavier investment than most.

As well as recent arrivals Olivier Giroud (€17m), Ross Barkley (€17m), (Alvaro Morata (€62m), Tiemoue Bakayoko (€40m) and Danny Drinkwater (€38m), Eden Hazard (€35m) and Willian (€35.5m) are key contributors to the Blues’ overall figure of €644m. 

Last summer was an eventful one for Barcelona, who lost Neymar, signed Ousmane Dembele and tried but failed to swap lorry-loads of cash for Philippe Coutinho.

They eventually captured the Brazil international from Liverpool in January, spending €120m on his signature to take their overall squad cost to €725m. Dembele (€105m), Luis Suarez (€81.7m) and Paulinho (€40m) are other key contributors to their overall tally.

Despite signing Romelu Lukaku, Nemanja Matic and Victor Lindelof for a combined €164.5m in the last few months, United’s squad cost rose by only €29m compared to summer 2016 due to the departures of Wayne Rooney, Morgan Schneiderlin, Henrikh Mkhitaryan Memphis Depay and Bastian Schweinsteiger.

United remain in the top three, however, thanks in large part to the then-world-record fee of €105m paid to Juventus for Paul Pogba.

PSG’s squad value rose by an extraordinary €395m in the last 12 months, largely due to the capture of Neymar for a world-record fee of €220m. It’s not all down to the Brazilian, though: Angel Di Maria and Edinson Cavani both moved to the French capital for more than €60m, while PSG exchanged €42m for Javier Pastore way back in 2011.

Having ranked behind Real Madrid and Manchester United in terms of squad cost in 2016, City’s purchases of Aymeric Laporte, Kyle Walker, Danilo, Benjamin Mendy, Ederson and Bernardo Silva have catapulted the Abu Dhabi-backed outfit into top spot - not just in the world today, but also in the history of the game

Pep Guardiola has spent fortunes since arriving at the club, but Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling – deals which were completed before the Catalan’s appointment – remain two of City's priciest additions.