FOOTBALL: THE RICHEST CLUBS IN THE WORLD

I was reading the Forbes magazine today (19th May 2008 edition) and found an article titled "Gunning for It All" at page 61. It is talking about the football business and Arsenal are chosen as the focus. The reason being Arsenal are the last of the Big Four who are not bought by foreigners yet. It touches on the difficulties the club endured for the construction of the new stadium and the aftermath of how it becomes among the giants in football world today. It also talks about the challenges ahead they will face with many potential vultures circling the club with great interest to buy at will!

Therefore, I will be sending Teg and Donny Ginola information of the article since they are their fans. Interestingly, the first page of the article has a photo of Mathieu Flamini. Here is the summary table of the current ranking of the richest clubs in the world.

Soccer Team Valuations

Revenues and operating income are for the 2006-07 season, converted into U.S. dollars based on June 30, 2007 exchange rates.
¹Value of team based on current stadium deals (unless new stadium is pending) without deduction for debt (other than stadium debt).
²Includes stadium debt.
³Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
Sources: Deloitte & Touche; company documents; Forbes.

Rank	Team	Current Value 1 ($mil)	Debt/Value(%) 2	Operating Income 3($mil)
1	Manchester United	1,800	60	111
2	Real Madrid	1,285	27	112
3	Arsenal	1,200	43	77
4	Liverpool	1,050	65	60
5	Bayern Munich	917	0	72
6	AC Milan	798	0	54
7	Barcelona	784	7	92
8	Chelsea	764	0	-5
9	Juventus	510	5	35
10	Schalke 04	470	48	36
11	AS Roma	434	12	48
12	Tottenham Hotspur	414	15	64
13	Olympique Lyonnais	408	7	15
14	Inter Milan	403	0	21
15	Borussia Dortmund	323	57	31
16	Newcastle United	300	43	12
17	Hamburg SV	293	0	41
18	Werder Bremen	262	0	11
19	Valencia	254	159	-49
20	Celtic	227	11	48
21	Everton	197	30	-1
22	West Ham United	195	23	-22
23	Manchester City	191	63	27
24	Aston Villa	190	12	-40
25	Olympique Marseille	187	0	13