Liverpool named as biggest selling club of the decade in new study — with arch rivals Manchester United 29th
Liverpool have been named as football's biggest selling club this decade in a new study of the transfer market since 2010.
The Premier League club has taken in more money from selling players than anyone else since 2010, raising €442m (£515.7m) — over £70m more than any other English team.
Figures compiled by the CIES Football Observatory, an academic research group based in Switzerland, put the Reds way ahead of their domestic rivals in terms of the amount of capital raised by offloading players in recent years.
Over a third of Liverpool's money raised from transfers in the last six years has come from just three sales — Raheem Sterling to Manchester City for £49m last summer, Fernando Torres to Chelsea for £50m (then a British transfer record) in January 2011 and Luis Suarez's £79m move to Barcelona in 2014.
Barcelona's £70m purchase of Luis Suarez was at the time the fourth most-expensive transfer in history (Source: Getty)
Yet before Liverpool fans rush to accuse former and current owners of being miserly, it's worth bearing in mind that the club has still spent more than it's earned on transfers in the period and is current sitting on a negative net spend of €221m for the decade.
Liverpool are one of just three English clubs in the world's top 10 sellers of the decade. Behind them sit Tottenham in seventh position withreceived €369m in transfer receipts according to CIES, Chelsea in 10th with €358m and Southampton in 15th with €268m.
Arch rivals Manchester United and Everton are all the way back in 29th and 39th position having raised just €182m and €150m respectively in the 14 transfer windows that have opened since 2010.
Manchester City are the biggest spenders of the decade so far and are the only club to have spent more than €1bn on new players, giving them a net spend of €771m that dwarfs Liverpool's.
The Merseyside club are just the sixth biggest spenders in world football during the same period, spending €663m on new players.
