Having splashed out world record fees for Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale in recent years, Real Madrid's transfer juggernaut shows no signs of slowing down after they parted with €80 million to sign James Rodriguez from Monaco. The Spanish giants have never been ones to tighten up around talk of opening the chequebook but the squad that they've assembled for the coming season has outstripped anything that has been seen before.
Even at the height of the galactico era in the mid 2000's, the club's outlay on expensive stars was offset by the presence of home grown players such as Raul and Guti or cheaply acquired stalwarts such as Salgado and Helguera. That's no longer the case.
The €250+ million that's been spent on Cristiano Ronaldo, Bale and James is someway comparable to the signings of Zidane, Figo and Ronaldo during the original galactico era. However, the kind of money that the new Madrid have spent on players who are barely able to make the bench at the Bernabeu dwarfs not only past Madrid teams but it must surely surpass anything else that is seen in today's nouveau riche world of big money transfers.
Being the transfer window anoraks that we are, we've crunched the numbers and as expected, Madrid's outlay on their current first team squad is the largest in world football. But while that may not surprise anyone, the amount by which they outstrip even their wealthiest competitors is particularly staggering.
Our calculations are based on the figures that have been most widely reported (primarily within the British media). So, for example, while Gareth Bale's price tag was quoted around the €91 million mark in Spain, we've gone for the €100 million that was bandied about in Britain. Where a player's transfer fee is reported as a base fee plus performance related bonuses, we've taken an average of the two figures. As undisclosed transfer fees are often decided by some kind of consensus among 'in the know' media outlets, this is far from an exact science. Having said that, it is nonetheless a handy approximation of just how much Real Madrid are capable of outspending everyone else whenever they feel the need.
The graphic below shows just how much some of the world's biggest clubs have spent on their squads as they are listed on 23/07/2014.
(Atletico aren't really up there in terms of expenditure on players but we've included the La Liga champions as a reference point)
Real Madrid
Total spend on current squad: €723 million
Most expensive acquisitions:
Gareth Bale - €100 million
Cristiano Ronaldo - €94 million
James Rodriguez - €80 million
Chelsea
Total spend on current squad: €488 million
Most expensive acquisitions:
Fernando Torres - €63 million
Eden Hazard - €40 million
Diego Costa - €40 million
Man City
Total spend on current squad: € 443 million
Most expensive acquisitions:
Sergio Aguero - €44 million
Fernandinho - €43 million
Edin Dzeko - € 32 million
Paris St Germain
Total spend on current squad: € 409 million
Most expensive acquisitions:
Edinson Cavani - €64.5 million
David Luiz - €63 million
Lucas Moura - €45 million
Man Utd
Total spend on current squad: €364.5 million
Most expensive acquisitions:
Juan Mata - €47 million
Luke Shaw - €37 million
Ander Herrera - €36 million
Barcelona
Total spend on current squad: €337 million
Most expensive acquisitions:
Luis Suarez - €94 million
Neymar - €57 million
Dani Alves - €30 million
Bayern Munich
Total spend on current squad: €220.5 million
Most expensive acquisitions:
Javi Martinez - €40 million
Mario Gotze - €37 million
Arjen Robben - €25 million
Atletico Madrid
Total spend on current squad: €119 million
Most expensive acquisitions:
Mario Mandzukic - €22 million
Jan Oblak - €16 million
Raul Garcia - €13 million
