Over the past 10 years, United's net spending on transfers has in some way been the highest in European football, exceeding €1 billion. Despite spending so much money on the players, they have only won three major trophies since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013. Clubs at Old Trafford find themselves ahead of Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain in terms of spending money, with wealthy bosses who are believed to have bought the success they want through money. However, according to a study conducted by the European football website, both teams have less net spending than Manchester United's 1.075 billion euros. In fact, the Red Devils are the only team in Europe's big five leagues to break that benchmark number.
It seems no surprise that City's net spending on transfers is €984 million, while Paris Saint-Germain's net spending on €941 million is in third place. The three clubs are far ahead, with Barcelona in fourth place with a transfer deficit of €650 million and Arsenal in fifth place with a transfer deficit of €583 million. There are 14 Premier League clubs in the top 20 of the list. In fact, teams like Everton, Aston Villa and West Ham have more net spending than Bayern Munich.
From the original spending data, Manchester City ranks first in Europe with a transfer cost of 1.7 billion euros, but it is followed by Barcelona (1.63 billion euros) and Chelsea (1.61 billion euros). United are fourth in this regard with just €1.55 billion, highlighting that they usually buy high and sell low.
France and Italian clubs have taken the lead in making money through transfer trades. For example, Lille topped the list with a transfer profit of 349 million euros, followed by Lyon with 247 million euros. Montpellier and Saint-Etienne are also in the top ten of Ligue 1 teams. Meanwhile, Genoa, Udinese, Atlanta and Empoli from Serie A are all in the top ten. By the way, the only team in the Premier League that has had a transfer surplus in the last 10 years is Brentford, who has a profit of 43 million euros.