Liverpool Are Worth A Ton of Money Confirms Yet Another Study

Another day, another study confirming that football is big business and that Premier League — or is that Premier £eague? — clubs are amongst the top valued clubs in the world. This time around it's the London School of Marketing (est. 2002), a private school associated with the 115th ranked Anglia Ruskin University, sharing their big money list without detailing their methodology in assembling said list.

But questions of methodology aside, big numbers counting in the billions make headlines and Liverpool's inclusion on the list warrants acknowledgement. If the "rich list" were the league table, your club would need to be worth at least £2 billion to make Champions League, and usual suspects Real Madrid, Manchester United, Barcelona, and Manchester City would all qualify. Minnows Bayern Munich would automatically qualify for Europa League with a mere £1.492 billion in fifth place.

The struggle to qualify for the remaining Europa League spots levels off a bit, with Chelsea (£870m), Arsenal (£830m), and then Liverpool in eight place (£624m) all hoping that the League and FA Cup winners have already qualified and that England lucked out and got a bonus spot due to fair play.

If you feel disheartened by the large gap between Liverpool's valuation and that of arch rivals Manchester United (£2.05b), don't be. Liverpool's value has more than doubled since Fenway Sports Group purchased the club for £300m five years ago, thanks in part to the quick catching up the club has done on the corporate side of the game in that time. Liverpool are obviously still far off from £2 billion by some magnitude, but that's the thing about valuations: they're estimates, not hard cash that can be spent on transfer fees, stadium expansion, or debt repayment by your sketchy owners.