Barcelona Continue to Top the Unfortunate List of Football Clubs With the Most Debt

Incurring debt is – at least at an elite level – a common occurrence in football. Day-to-day running costs have skyrocketed as fans and players demand the very best from some of the most recognisable institutions on the planet. With that in mind, we explore the football club with the most debt as of 2024.

Debt is commonplace is football – just ask the world’s most bountiful division, the Premier League, who reported just three clubs either breaking even or ‘in the green.’ In total, the total debt for the Premier League stood at £3.6bn at the end of 2023.

Although a select few English clubs will inevitably appear on this list, borrowing money is a far bigger problem further afield.

Football Clubs With the Most Debt 2024

5. Roma – €487m

Serie A is rife with debt, serving as a reflection of Italy’s wider government debt, high taxes and steady population decline.

As of March this year, Italian clubs combined for a total debt of €3.2bn, with those near the upper echelons of the table incurring the biggest losses.

Most notably Roma, who are in the process of paying off a litany of shareholder loans, bonds and finance leases.

All but four of Serie A’s 20 teams essentially publicly rent their stadiums, which incurs millions of Euros worth of rent every season. In the short-term this may seem like an effective model, but a beyond a big up-front cost a stadium pays for itself in the long-term.

This has been a sticking point for Roma, alongside existing Luxembourg bonds worth €175m that have just over 6% interest attached.

American owner Dan Friedkin – who is strongly linked with purchasing debt-ridden Everton – has done a commendable job cutting costs and raising revenue, and even expressed willingness to offset a considerable chunk of their debt with his own personal wealth two years ago.

Despite this, Roma remain close to half-a-billion in debt as of 2024.

4. Atletico Madrid – €514m

For a side who managed to spend €200m on new recruits this summer, Atletico Madrid still find themselves with a precarious amount of debt.

€514m to be precise, but this number is a significant improvement on the reported €999m worth of outstanding payments they faced at the end of the 2019/20 season.

Granted, this included the fiscal aftermath of constructing their ultra-modern new home – the Metropolitano.

With the club coasting somewhat in European after enjoying Europa League successes and Champions League final successes in the early days of Diego Simeone’s tenure, revenue dwindled as player acquisitions and infrastructure costs soared.

A much needed capital injection of €181.8 million from private equity investor Ares Management saw them sell off a 33.96% stake  almost three years ago, which went a long way to helping cut their debt.

Despite this, they still remain Spain’s second-most indebted club.

3. Inter Milan – €829m

Marking a significant jump into the top three, Inter Milan’s debt problem continues to rumble below the surface.

Fortunately for the Serie A champions, success on the pitch has been a considerable driving factor to offsetting outstanding payments. A Champions League final two years ago, followed by domestic success has made them a formidable force on the pitch, led by one of the highest paid managers in world football.

Despite a feel-good factor around the San Siro at this moment in time – at least for the blue side of Milan – €350m in bonds (including interest) failed to be repaid to US investment firm Oaktree, who now own the club after former Chinese ownership Suning defaulted on its debt.

Continued operating losses coupled with the impending decision on either renovating or moving away from the San Siro ultimately scared away investors, meaning Inter are still holding onto nearly €900m in debt.

2. Manchester United – €911m

Manchester United’s well-documented debt can be split into three sections; €600m in long-term payments, €300m in revolving credit facility and over €300m in outstanding transfer fees.

The new INEOS-led ownership have been publicly vocal about reducing the bloat, which most recently saw them brutally cut Sir Alex Ferguson’s £2.16m per-annum ambassador role from the budget.

Years of massively overpaying for players who offered little in return, coupled with leftovers from the Glazers’ leveraged buyout in 2005 – which left the club with an instant $787 million worth of debt – means United have spiralled down a rabbit hole of outstanding payments.

1. Barcelona – €2.7bn

Years of gross mismanagement at board level, which saw Barcelona offices raided by Catalan police over allegations of corruption in 2023, has left one of football’s iconic clubs in a fiscal morass.

The team’s overall decline after years of unprecedented success coincided with Josep Bartomeu’s arrival – the disgraced former president in office between 2014 and 2020.

Under Bartomeu, the club responded to success by introducing extortionate salaries for its star players, including Lionel Messi‘s pre-tax salary of over €100m.

Spending well over La Liga’s spending cap, shrinking assets and reduced income since moving out of the Nou Camp has left returning president Joan Laporta to pick up the pieces.

He has stripped the club to its core, enacting ‘economic levers’ such as selling the club’s future media rights, stakes in Barca studios and handing over naming rights to the soon-to-be-new stadium in one of the biggest sponsorship deals in football, alongside Spotify.

For now, Barcelona are operating just within La Liga’s spending limits thanks to new sponsorship opportunities and a massive reduction in wages, but for how long is a question that continues to overshadow the club.