The new Football Benchmark report on the corporate valuations of European teams: the Nerazzurri grow by 25% by combining sporting results and financial sustainability
It’s a question of cycles. This is the Inter cycle. Not an absolute dominance on the pitch – in the current era Napoli (twice) and Milan have managed to establish themselves in Serie A – but an excellent record, in Italy and in Europe: in the last six years, three scudetti, two second places and a third place, above all two Champions League finals, with the corollary of three Italian Cups and three Italian Super Cups. Constantly remaining at the top of the national rankings and in the noble garden of Europe has allowed the Nerazzurri club to assert a sporting and economic leadership that is now quite clear. The certification comes from the eleventh edition of “Football clubs’ valuation: The European Elite”, Football Benchmark’s annual study on club business valuations: Inter not only takes the lead among Italian teams, but reaches a enterprise value of 2.1 billion euros (exactly 2,137 million), crossing the 2 billion threshold for the first time and creating a gap between itself and the others. Juventus and Milan are tied at 1.8 billion (1,837 million for the Bianconeri, 1,807 for the Rossoneri), then Naples at 967 million, Rome at 730, Atalanta at 638 and Lazio at 519. These are the Italians that fall into the European ranking of the top 32 clubs, dominated by Real Madrid with a valuation of 7.7 billion.
the method
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THE’enterprise value it is the company valuation: it therefore expresses the overall value of a company, the sum of all its assets. Football Benchmark calculates it through the turnover multiple model, correcting the multiplier based on an algorithm that takes into account five parameters: profitability (salary-income ratio and Ebit), popularity (following on social media), sporting potential (value of the squad), management of TV rights and any owned stadiums. For the latest edition of the report, the 2023-24 and 2024-25 budgets were taken as reference. It was precisely the record revenues and the historic achievement of profits last season that caused Inter’s value to skyrocket, up 25% compared to a year ago. This is the largest increase among Italian clubs (Juventus and Atalanta +11%, Roma +10%, Milan stable, Napoli and Lazio negative) and one of the largest overall, inferior only to that of Aston Villa (+41%) and Barcelona (+33%). The curve of the last decade tells a good story of the progress made by Inter, which before the advent of the Zhang family was worth less than 500 million, before reaching one billion in 2022 and accelerating growth in recent years, those in which the results on the pitch were accompanied by finally sustainable management, governed by Oaktree, and by global brand development policies. “Today’s Inter reminds me a lot of pre-Ronaldo Juventus, in terms of sporting success and financial sustainability, and it is no coincidence that the head of the company is the same, Beppe Marotta, with strong ownership behind him”, explains Andrea Sartori, CEO and founder of Football Benchmark, who adds: “The Nerazzurri case confirms a more recent trend in football, one which often sees sporting results and accounting balance go hand in hand. In the past this happened much more rarely, even for the absence of sufficiently stringent UEFA regulations, which today are helping to make clubs more solid and sustainable without compromising sporting competitiveness”.
delay
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Italian football remains far from the European elite. The gap from tenth in the ranking, Chelsea, which is worth 3 billion, is almost a billion (only one Italian has been in the top ten, Juventus in 2022). There are now four companies that have a enterprise value of at least 5 billion: Real Madrid, Barcelona and the two Manchester teams. And the first one took off. Thanks to a +23% compared to 2025, Los Blancos are heading towards 8 billion. Among the key factors, the enormous commercial appeal of the Real brand and the new Bernabeu, demonstrating the fact that without modern and multifunctional stadiums you won’t get far. “Apart from the notable growth of Inter, which still has considerable room for growth, the Italian market remains quite stagnant. The gap created by the elite of European football must be a warning, and also a spur for the development of Serie A which will be able to become competitive again also with the contribution of a new generation of facilities”, Sartori commented.
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