Despite all the money involved, football remains one of the most debt-ridden businesses on the planet, with the top clubs owing hundreds of millions.

Football is often thought of as a source of endless money, with players earning several hundred thousand pounds a week, but the reality is, almost all of the top clubs owe huge sums to outside investors.

The cost of running an elite-level football club has risen dramatically in the last few decades and with the UK’s independent football regulator saying 94% of clubs in the English Football League are operating at a loss, we have taken a look at the biggest debts in world football.

Top of the list is Barcelona, who are reported to be €2.7bn in debt.

The club’s problems began under former president Josep Maria Bartomeu, who was in charge from 2014 to 2020.

In a 2021 financial review, Barcelona admitted there had been “serious administrative deficiencies”, with huge sums spent on the likes of Philippe Coutinho, Ousmane Dembele and Antoine Griezmann while player wages had risen 61% in three years.

The club was already on a knife edge and then COVID hit, and Barcelona reported a €43m loss in the 2019-20 season, which rose to €65m the following year.

All the while, they had a crumbling stadium they wanted to rebuild. Plans to refurbish Camp Nou had been on the go since 2010 and the project was given the green light via a club referendum in April 2024. It has been a money pit pretty much ever since.

It was initially expected to cost around €600m and be finished by 2021 but, much like the Sagrada Familia in the same city, it is still being built after lengthy delays.

In October 2021, new president Joan Laporta saw the members approve up to €1.5bn for the stadium project and work was not started until the 2022-23 season.

Costs have continued to rise and in September of this year, the members approved more borrowing in the form of a €510m loan, taking the total budget for the project up to €1.8 billion.

The delays, in which Barcelona played at the 6,000-capacity Estadi Johan Cruyff at their training ground and the 50,000-capacity Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys, mean the club is losing a lot of money every matchday, which is why they are so eager to get back into the Camp Nou.

Barcelona have tried to offset their debt with the much publicised ‘levers’, in which they are essentially selling their future income to the highest bidder, such as 25% of their La Liga TV rights for the next 25 years.

Tottenham are another team faced with the financial burden of a new stadium and is the second most indebted club in England. Building the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium cost the club £1.2 billion, well above the initial estimate of £305m.

To finance this, the club took out £637m in bank loans, but during COVID had to take out an extra £175m loan.

That meant the club was predicted to have the biggest debt in February 2021 of any European club, but five years on and Spurs are reaping the benefits of having one of the best stadiums on the planet.

Spurs earned £126.5m from match receipts in 2025 and the stadium hosts 30 non-football events a year. The club announced they earned £277.1m from commercial opportunities in 2025.

All of this means the club has cut the net debt down to £831.2m at the end of the 2025 financial year. While a year has passed, crucially, stadium borrowing does not count towards PSR, which is how the club managed to spend so much in the summer.

And if both of these clubs’ problems can be explained by a new stadium, Manchester United’s cannot.

United’s relationship with the Glazers has been well criticised, but the shortened version is that United were a largely debt-free club in 2005 and, in order to buy the club, the Glazer family borrowed money to finance the takeover and used the club as collateral.

It is a move that hardly seems legal but cost £790m and saw the club’s debt go from £50m to £604m in the space of a year.

And the Glazers have no intention of trying to pay it off.

The BBC reported that around £852m has been made in interest payments, all the while the Glazer family continued to take dividends, which have amounted to £1.2 billion over the years.

This, mixed with high transfer fees on average players and a failure to consistently qualify for the Champions League, has the club’s debt at £1.15bn.

Chelsea are also an interesting case. In April, they announced a pre-tax loss of £262.4m, which is the largest in Premier League history. Even worse than that, BlueCo, the company that owns Chelsea and other clubs, has a debt of £1.39bn.

While that is not directly attributable to the club, it should still be a concern for Chelsea fans.

Away from England, Italian clubs Inter Milan, Roma and Juventus also have big debts.

Inter had a bid problem as they were borrowing from tomorrow to pay for today. The club issued €300m in bonds in 2017 after Chinese conglomerate Suning took over in 2016.

Then COVID hit and they lost close to €250m in 2021. That same year, they took out an emergency loan of €275m from US investment firm Oaktree, which came with a 12% interest rate and grew to €400m.

Suning failed to repay it in May 2024 and so Oaktree took over. Under the US firm, the finances have improved, with a first profit in 15 years for the 2024/25 season, but there is still a big hole to dig themselves out of.

Others on the list include Arsenal, Liverpool and PSG.

All figures are estimates using the best available sources

10. Paris Saint-Germain — £231.7m (€274.4m)
9. Chelsea — £262.4m (Parent company BlueCo has a £1.39bn debt)
8. Liverpool — £285m
7. Juventus — £286.8m
6. Inter Milan — £336m (€398m)
5. AS Roma — £348.4m (€413m)
4. Arsenal — £426.9m
3. Tottenham Hotspur — £831.2m
2. Manchester United — £1.15bn
1. FC Barcelona — £2.28bn (€2.7bn)