eToro Football Investment Report reveals elite club secrets for success

IT’S no secret that football and big business go hand-in-hand. Behind the scenes, there are huge sums of money at stake.

Investment platform eToro has published an in-depth report that reveals the buying, selling and investment habits of Europe’s elite clubs over the past few years.

• eToro Football Investment Report – read here

You don’t need to be a football fan to know that player acquisition isn’t just about winning matches – it’s about bottom-line profits, too.

Just as important as scouting for rising, small-league stars is knowing the right moment to let go of established names to generate the maximum profits.

This report from eToro offers an absolutely fascinating windowpane into the business dealings of clubs including Premier League treble-winners Manchester City, Borussia Dortmund, Benfica and dozens more.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to elite club success – each team’s methods and priorities vary. Some strategies are long-term, some short-term.

Perhaps the one thing Europe’s titan football clubs have in common is that they’re all operating in an absolutely ruthless big-bucks industry.

As former England midfielder and BT Sport pundit Joe Cole comments on in his foreword to the report: ‘The way that football clubs approach transfers and talent development has never been more important.

‘The margins at the top of the game are so small that any edge a team can find can be the difference between success and failure. Getting it right has never been so important.’

We’ve read the report and have listed some of its most compelling findings below.

Key findings: the eToro Football Investment report

The Football Investment Report was created by eToro along with the German football site Transfermarkt.

It draws from multiple variables of data across time frames of either 5 or 10 years.

• The club to generate the highest profits from transfer sales was Benfica, which made a cool £625.4m in player sales, and a £312.3m profit in transfer activities. 
• ‘Buy low, sell high’ is a business adage as old as time – and it’s Borussia Dortmund who saw the highest return on a player: it bought Ousmane Dembélé from Stade Rennais for £30.7m, before selling him to Barcelona for £122.8m.
• The most profitable player as a whole, again, goes to Benfica, who sold João Félix to Atlético Madrid for £111.6m in 2019/20. Interestingly, the next two – Ruben Dias and Éderson – were both sold to Man City.
• Ousmane Dembélé delivered the biggest profit after just one season  – but it’s worth mentioning that Benjamin Mendy ranks at number 5 on the list: he was signed from Monaco to Marseille for £11.4m in 2016/17, and then was picked up by Manchester City in 2017/18 for £50.4m.
• In terms of UK clubs, it’s Tottenham Hotspur who has added the most value to their team. It ranks at number 3 in the list with an increased value of £281.4m.

For a deep dive into these stats and how they compare against rival clubs, we highly recommend you read eToro’s Football Investment Report for a deep dive.

If you’re passionate about football and you’re thinking of getting into investing, the 27-page report is essential reading – you can head to the eToro site and download the PDF.

Since 2018, eToro has been a major sponsor of the Premier League, and since 2020 has also sponsored teams across the top European leagues.

Next season, they will sponsor the men’s, and for the first time, the women’s teams of Arsenal, Everton, West Ham and Crystal Palace in the PL and WSL

• eToro Football Investment Report – read here

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