RANKED: Here's how much every team at the 2018 World Cup is worth
Lucas Uebel/Getty Images
- Around £9 billion ($12 billion) worth of players will be on show at this year's World Cup in Russia.
- The world's top three players — Neymar, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo — are worth more than the nine least valuable teams combined.
- Scroll down to see how much each squad is worth, from lowest to highest.
In football, cash is king, and while the World Cup is a welcome break for most of us from the ludicrous transfer fees and ever rising price of replica shirts, there's still an awful lot of money involved.
But which team at this summer's World Cup, which starts on Thursday in Moscow, is worth the most money in the market?
Using data from football data site Transfermarkt, analysts at Dutch bank ING have calculated that around £9 billion ($12 billion) will be on show at the tournament, with Spain being the most valuable team — it's worth more than £900 million ($1.2 billion).
Big European and South American sides dominate the upper echelons of player worth, while minnows like Panama and Saudi Arabia dwell at the bottom end of the charts.
In fact, the world's top three players — Neymar, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo — are worth more than the nine least valuable teams combined, ING calculated.
"Some say the football market is highly inflated — and it's certainly astonishing to see the significant increase in team values from the last World Cup," Ian Bright, a senior economist at ING said. "But whether you truly get value for money is a question that only fans can answer."
Check out how much every squad at the World Cup is worth below.
32. Panama
Reuters
Squad value: £8.7 million ($11.7 million)
31. Saudi Arabia
Octavio Passos/Getty Images
Squad value: £15.1 million ($20.2 million)
30. Peru
Getty Images
Squad value: £32.6 million ($43.6 million)
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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