Chelsea vs Man City: The most expensive fixture in English football history?

25 Oct 2013 12:38

With the two clubs being among the highest-spending in the world over the past 10 years, is this fixture the most expensive ever?

The Green Derby: Is this the 'most expensive' match in football?

Chelsea and Manchester City are the highest profile benefactors of the influx of major foreign investment into the Premier League over the last decade.
Manchester City’s riches come courtesy of oil money from the UAE’s deputy prime minister Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.
Chelsea’s Russian billionaire owner Roman Abramovich has reportedly sunk around $2billion into the club.
But out of the two sides, have Manchester City or Chelsea spent more money on players, and is this fixture the ‘most expensive’ in the history of football?
If you chose the most expensive possible starting XI for each club on Saturday, the fixture is worth a staggering amount of money.
But how much money? We've done the sums below:

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Martin Rose

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Chelsea v Man City cost

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So as you can see, out of the two sides, if Chelsea fielded their costliest possible XI, it would cost nearly £5million more than Manchester City's.
Chelsea have spent more than any other club in England at £767million in the past 10 years, and their net outlay (transfer fees weighed against transfer profits) since 2003 is the highest in the world at £585million.
By contrast, Real Madrid’s net outlay in the same time frame is around £518million.
Manchester City lie just behind, having spent £708million, received £203million, with a net outlay of £504million.
It means that the match-up between Manchester City and Chelsea is the ‘most expensive’ regular fixture in the world, judged on spending over the past decade. But Chelsea and Real Madrid would be an even more costly match this season, if they were to meet in European competition.
Just five of Real Madrid's current squad add up to the same amount in transfer fees as Chelsea's most expensive possible team, with Gareth Bale thought to have cost between £80-£86m, Cristiano Ronaldo £82m, Xabi Alonso £31, Karim Benzema £30m, and Angel di Maria £29m.

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