Spanish Giants Lead Brand Value Rankings; Man City Drops To Third

Real Madrid and Barcelona are the two most valuable club brands in world football with values of €1.9 billion and €1.7 billion respectively. Real Madrid topped the ranking in 2024 with a value of €1.7 billion.

Manchester City, ranked as the world’s second most valuable club brand in 2024, have dropped to third place in the 2025 ranking, falling 11% to €1.4 billion. In 2023 Man City were ranked top (€1.51 billion) ahead of Real Madrid.

The ranking, now in its 18th year, has been produced by brand valuation consultancy Brand Finance. Brand value is defined as the net economic benefit that a brand owner would achieve by licensing the brand in the open market.

Real Madrid and Barcelona were also given AAA+ ratings for brand strength and have the highest enterprise values, €6 billion and €4.4 billion, respectively. Together they account for a 74% concentration of the total value of Spain’s top ten club brands.

In contrast, the Premier League’s top ten brand values total €8.2 billion – 37% of the total value of the world’s top 50 most valuable clubs.

Brand Finance point out that a unique characteristic of the Premier League is the distribution of this value across its six big clubs – Manchester City (€1.4 billion), Liverpool (€1.4 billion), Manchester United (€1.2 billion), Arsenal (€1.2 billion), Chelsea (€961 million), and Tottenham Hotspur (€798 million).

All six clubs are in the top 10 of the ranking. In the 2024 ranking there was a huge drop off from sixth-placed Premier League club Chelsea (€897 million), to seventh-placed Newcastle at less than €350 million. No figures beyond the top 10 have been released for 2025.

Notable riser is Paris Saint-Germain who are now in the global top five, following a brand value increase of 13% to €1.4 billion.

FC Bayern Munich (brand value up 1% to EUR1.3 billion) is Germany’s most valuable football club brand and ranks 6th globally but rank the second highest for international fan following, behind Manchester United.

Hugo Hensley, Head of Sports Services, Brand Finance said: “The combined value of the world’s top 50 football club brands has climbed to EUR21.9 billion in 2025. However, Brand Finance research reveals a growing imbalance across the game, as outside of the Premier League, brand value is increasingly concentrated among a handful of elite clubs in Europe’s top leagues. Brand is no longer a byproduct of performance but is now a defining driver of success. As the sport becomes increasingly competitive both on the pitch and commercially, clubs and leagues must manage their brands strategically to ensure they aren’t edged out of realising the benefits of a strong and valuable brand.”

Insideworldfootball.com