I love how Alfie doesn't shy away from spoiling it for us in his thumbnail. 😂😂

Shoutout to future Brighton for getting over 100 for mitoma 😎

FC Nordsjaelland in honorable mentions also Not massively profitable in terms of the size of sales but has made millions from players that joined for free such as Kamaldeen Sulemana, Andreas Schjelderup, Andreas Skov Olsen, Simon Adingra, Mohamed Kudus, Mikkel Damsgaard etc etc

Brighton are the kind of club that would manage to sell James Milner for £50m

Union Berlin would also have been deserving of a honorable mention imo

The numbers all speak to one club dominating the transfer market: Benfica They have the most sales, the biggest profit to investment ratio. The pipeline of Latin America --> Benfica ---> European Superclubs is a well oiled machine. For all the successes though, they're are just as many busts. Not that Benfica cares, they're still making bank.

As a father of a son with Down Syndrome, Brentford will always have a special place in my heart because to the players and managers special relationship with Woody O’Rourke. Happy to see them on this list. Go Bees!

Brighton are obviously 10/10 at the moment. But so were Southampton a few years ago, so it'll be interesting to see how long it lasts.

Where’s Atalanta? What they’ve done in serie a has been incredible

Ajax performance this season will determine whether or not there will be a video titled "What On Earth Is Going On At Ajax?"

Imagine what league tables would look like if these teams didn’t HAVE to sell to remain competitive. Insane

Benfica should be minimum top 3. Highest profit in recent markets and consistently generates new and high level academy graduates. I cant see a reason to leave Benfica out, other than pure spite.

Braga over Benfica surprised me. Other than the 2021/22 transfer window, they have been outstanding in their business. Between 2014-2021 they conducted arguably the best business in terms of generating a profit and replacing departed players (1 Billion Euros in transfer revenue since 2015). Great video though, no question Brighton have done the best business in recent years. Was expecting a surprise mention from Southampton for their role as the premier league's academy (well... mainly Liverpool's) for the late 2000s/early 2010s.

It's incredible how good his videos are, he's clearly the best football KZfaqr

Olá amigo Alfie! A few years back it should be Porto topping this list. But unfortunately our management is falling apart and more interested in their own pockets rather than in the club. Here's a new video suggestion: Rise and Fall of FC Porto.

I was hoping to see Shakhtar Donetsk in honourable mentions at least. Although they are owned by Ukrainian oligarch, they also do great business in recruiting and selling young players, mostly Brazilians, like Fred, Douglas Costa, Willian, Fernandinho, but also Mkhitaryan or Mudryk

Being an Ajax fan is like having a Divorce every 4 years. Your partner takes all the kids, but at least you had a solid prenuptual and you kept your mansion.

As a data scientist student I just hope Brighton's business can last a bit longer, so I can work for them after I graduate 😂

I Love your work Alfie, keep it up . Cheers from Brazil!!!

Your level have been even better than usual of late. Thank you Alfie for the excellent public service provided!

I think that Atalanta should have been mentioned instead of Udinese, they're probably the best runned club in Italy, and in just a few seasons they passed from being a yo-yo club to regularly qualify for Europe. Udinese used to be like that in the early 2010's, but now they are an average mid-table club

Honorable mentions from Germany: Union Berlin, the Bundesliga equivalent to Brentford. Only more successful. Their story shows how far you can come if you just don't make mistakes on the transfer market - even with a budget as small as theirs. The top scorer last season, Sheraldo Becker, was signed for 1M out of the Eredivisie btw. Those are the kind of deals which brought them to the Champions League. Leverkusen, although as a Colonian it pains me to admit it. Very consistent over the last like 25 years, very little duds, and an insane transfer window this summer. But I suspect Xavi Alonso's star power might have had something to do with that.

Sassuolo should have been a honourable mention. In the last couple of years they have made some big sales like Boga to Atalanta, Frattesi to Inter, Scamacca to West Ham, Hamed Traore to Bournmouth. Or even Atalanta could’ve been here as they made their rise in serie a due to their amazing business.

You should do a video about the story of C.F. “Os Belenenses”, whose stadium, the Estádio do Restelo, you show at 1:56. Really interesting history of a celebrated Portuguese club that has had to be reborn and has secured 5 consecutive promotions, now playing in the Liga Portugal 2 with hopes of returning to the top flight very soon

That Brighton Moneyball Process is solid gold.

I think a video on the most successful siblings in football would be interesting. Averaging out the players respective years. One world class player and a non-league sibling might rank worse than a duo of championship players. Reece and Lauren James would be near the top for sure

I'm surprised Villarreal aren't in there. Their ability to get really good players, often for free, has made them the most overperforming team around in spite of coming from a tiny town in Spain.

Southampton not even getting an honourable mention is criminal

AYYYYY, never been this early ! Love you, Alfie, i'm sure this one is going to be an amazing watch as usual 🖤

Hi from Singapore 🇸🇬 one the few people in Singapore to watch ur videos

Brilliant presentation....and with a constant dose of biting humour too😀😀😀😀

10:17 "Back in Ligue 1 in fourth, where one team spends more on transfers than the other nineteen* combined" * seventeen now; Ligue 1 contracted by two clubs this summer

Brighton players have Willian symptome, players who are world class when they need to sign an contract (in this case to move to a bigger club) and as soon as they accomplishe that they turn in good old Willian

A Bright ongoing operation! 👍👏

Monaco have also just bought Bslogun from Arsenal for a cool £40m which is a record fee for the Gunners. They outbid a host of top teams including Chelsea, Fulham and even AC Milan so it’s a little surprising he opted for Monaco but he knows French football and is pretty much guaranteed to be a regular starter which is what he needs at his age and development.

As a crystal palace fan, seeing brighton get promoted after us, leapfrog us, continue to make the best signings, continue to scam everyone on their sales, become the exciting underdog everyone else is cheering for, AND just keep improving, (all while we don't improve that much) is not just annoying, but enraging & infuriating, and that's just putting it lightly.

Olá amiga jeitosa... Alfie, you're the best ahah. Best of luck from Portugal

Alfie, please I just watched your video on the 7 world class players who were terrible at other clubs. I want to know if you think Pedri is world class. I'll like you to do a video on the term "world class". Please, do relate it to what you think about Sir Alex Chapman Ferguson's book, "Leading", in which he stated that he only had four world class players in his time in Manchester United.

I feel like Atalanta BC deserved at least an honorable mention too... I mean, they started buying quite big in the most recent years, but if you look at the sellings you can see the likes of Bastoni, Diallo and Kulusevski (all Academy player) being sold for, respectively, 33, 40 and 44 million euros, and we can add to the list players like Kessié (35mln), Gagliardini (28mln), Romero (55mln) and Højlund (75/85mln) just to mention the most notable ones... I mean, it seems nothing to sneeze at!

You should research Independiente Del Valle from Ecuador. They make the best business in Southamerica. They are the club that sold Moises Caicedo, Piero Hincapie, Kendry Paez and many more. And footballwise they are one of the best teams in South America

Southampton and Leicester was also touted on how to run a club and transfer market, but unfortunately it will catch up with you sooner or later

can you do a video on the clubs who get the best/worst ROI's for their academies?

i feel like if your looking at the last 10 years, monaco should really be higher, higher than lille (even tho there also great) over the last 10 years theyve bought: james rodruiguez, falcao, joao moutinho, martial, bernardo silva, fabinho, lemar, benjamin mendy, tielemans, golovin(who IMO is one of the most under rated players in world football), ben yedder, tchouameni, yousouff fofana, disasi, volland, caio henrique, and vanderson, as well as the mbappe sale monaco have definatly made mistakes, but their successes over shadow that 10 fold IMO

I feel this list misses some enormous factors. For one, these Brighton players weren't just well scouted - they were developed superbly. For two, tons of Brightons signings fail, they just fail little and win big. For three, some clubs have absolutely transformed their clubs fortunes with their transfer policy. Liverpool players didnt bring in sales, but they did turn around the clubs revenue. Newcastle had a big budget, but going from near relegation to champs league with what they spent, so quickly, is still really impressive.

To be honest i feel like the big 3 + in Netherlands + AZ have done some great business the last few years. Even Twente lately been amazing

I'd like to see a video on inpatients these days how people judge transfers and managers so fast as a manager been sacked after a few bad games and transfers been labelled flops after less then a month or so what's going on what's causing it probably social media it would be a good watch if you could try figuring out that's going on

Video idea: where are they now? The players of both teams in the 9 goal game by Haaland in the 2019 u-20 world cup.

These kinds of lists always skew in favour of clubs/nations that still reap the benefits of colonization. Portugal, France and the Netherlands all have this pipeline that encourages talent from former colonies to join them before being sold for a profit. Clubs like these make up for more than half this list with the rest being the Moneyballers and Salzburg.

Olá amigo jeitosa 😂 cheers mate, love from Portugal!

burst out laughing when you started talking about Liverpool's 2018 signings, we had it so good for exactly 2 months

Great video alfie, but 3 great video plugs in one other video has unfortunately brought 115 FFP violations against your channel

I'd love to see Brighton pick up Oscar Zambrano or Fabrizio Diaz to replace Caicedo

I renew my petition for you to include international subtitles for your videos. I volunteer for Spanish but just having them would be great for me and my football loving non-English speaking family.

Monaco also had huge duds in transfer business, they are saved by some transfers but are all the time recruiting loads of players with a lot of deceptions.

brett assombalonga what a player for forest with his form at forest probs could of been half decent prem player shame he didnt hit it off at middlesbrough and ended up going turkey but top player a few yrs ago in championship similar level to ben brereton of recent shame forest didnt keep him aswell

16:38 I will admit that City has extremely wealthy owners and were creative with the accounting, but I will extremely adamant, that thanks to Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain (both started working at City in 2012) this club evolved from a rich guy vanity project into extremely very well oiled machine. And yes, if City would loose now all the money from UAE it would be a significant hit, but this club would not collapse like other clubs with rich owners who got bored. But the reputation of petroclub still follows City and people love to say that Manchester City bought all their successes, which is simply not true. City have become quite niggardly in terms of money spent on transfer fees and there where multiple situation when City was just outbid by clubs more frivolous with their money (just from memory transfers which were to expensive to Manchester City: Van Dijk, Dani Alves, Alexis Sanchez, Jorginho, Cristiano Ronaldo, Rice, Koulibaly). And if net spending was the decided who club wins then City would not be able to touch Manchester United or Chelsea. Just in last season City earned 53 million more from selling players than they spend buying, and they bought a lot of people in last transfer window: Haaland, Phillips, Akanji, Gómez, Perrone.

The fact that the 3 big Portuguese clubs are all in the top 5 for biggest transfer gains and even a considerably smaller club like Braga is still in the top 10 is honestly insane

The problem with this is for most of these clubs, all they have achieved is profit. Football is not just about profit - but winning. And winning trophies. For all their good business, Brighton and Brentford have empty trophy cabinets. Maybe the best transfer business is done by teams who win trophies, while also not wasting money. Liverpool have won everything in the past few years while having a low net transfer spend and signing very few duds (and picking up bargains like Salah for £35m). Arsenal too have managed to sign some very good players like Odegaard & Martinelli for very limited sums while winning four out of ten FA Cups.

How about Alfie,the 7 teams who have the smallest squads to pick from that are the most successful in their country,not like City,Chelsea,PSG and the like who probably have over a 100 registered players,or the teams with most players actually starting from that country Inc academy players brought through as first teamers

The pozzo family had a model where they identified talent for their clubs. Selling those players on to bigger clubs. Alexis Sanchez being one of the biggest assests. I hope Brighton don't get into this habit of identifying talent just to sell on. Their luck will run out at some point.

Brighton Like West Bromwich Albion a decade ago are signing players no one knew now The Baggies didn't sign as decent players as Brighton but They were really useful underrated players and in some cases Club Legends like Chris Brunt and James Morrison. But that was down to Dan Ashworth who I believe works at Brighton or Newcastle. Dan Ashworth had he still been at West Brom and if he is at Brighton would have brought the method he has to Brighton. And as A Baggies Fan My God would I be loving it. Brentford Have adopted the Moneyball recruitment on that I say the Film on that and in a way Barnsley for a time where trying to implement it. But Brighton and Brentford are masters of it. Though I would Decribe Brighton as doing Football Manager Signings or Fifa Signings you hope work and it reaps you success relatively for a club like Brighton you sell them and recycle. I really hope Brighton do well this year I admire and am Enevious of Brighton and Brentford. The Baggies my team had it for a short while. I mean to think we could have signed Romelu Lukaku and sold him for 70 Million. I actually have a Video Idea if Possible going back on Old Players from the first 1 Million Signing Trevor Francis or Bobby Moore, Dixie Dean, Laurie Cunningham the First British Player to sign for Real Madrid how good and how much would they be worth today with Football Inflation. Considering the three I named are also English and that also inflates things

From Portugal and Benfica fan. Braga do some smart transfers.

As a Lifelong Brighton fan I agree wholeheartedly........🙂 However for Ajax to buy,sell,buy,sell etc etc etc year on year and to still finish in the top 3 is simply amazing so respect to Ajax. Shoutout to Portugese side Braga's fans for not selling out to Arab slaver traders like Newcastle fans have and shame on them. PS: Love this channel..

The freddy adu joke never gets old😂😂😂

As an Austrian and a supporter of Sturm Graz, I 'd like to add some perspective on RB Salzburg and our Bundesliga. In contrast to Germany and Leipzig, there is much less hate for Salzburg. Sure, there are a few remaining fans ofAustria Salzburg (a club whose hooligans are very much connected to the far right) and some part of the fanbase of the Vienese clubs (who imo are just salty that Vienna is no longer the centre of Austrian football) who despise the team. The rest, however, has understood that without Red Bull Austrian football as a whole would be a lot worse off. If not for Salzburg and some of their incredible performances in Europe, year after year, our coefficent would be absolutely nowhere. As for our national team, a whole host of very important players has been trained in their academies (Laimer, Xaver Schlager, Seiwald to name a few). And lastly, while sure, the league title has been their monopoly for quite a while now, in recent years some teams, mainly my beloved Sturm Graz (my "blackies") and LASK have begun to partially copy Salzburg's approach while still finding their own twists on it which enabled them to be more competetive and slowly close the gap. The championship last year was the closest it has been in year, with Salzbrug and Sturm showing incredible performances (Salzburg only lost one game the whole season against, of course, Sturm!) and the title decider going almost to the wire. Sturm also managed to eliminate Salzburg from the league cup on penalties in the quarter finals. Sturm shifting their focus to signing new talents has also massively helped the club with their most high profile scouting success being a certain Rasmus Höjlund.

Ok Alfie I forgive you for that 9th place thumbnail now 😄

As a potential video idea, I keep seeing lots of 16-18 year olds, with a couple of even 14 and 15 year olds moving to Chelsea, Man City, Newcastle and Villa. Was wondering if this is something worth looking into as to why. Especially when just seeing Villa sell Aaron Ramsey and Cameron Archer. Are they all just copying the Chelsea model? Is this to have more homegrown at club talent to beat UEFA rules when you sell them as pure profit? Or is it actually with the hope of seeing just 1 or 2 turn into first team players with the benefit of resale value for those who don't make it?

Do same but worst next this was fire video

Ben White moved a little longer ago. Agree with everything else.

Still hoping for that Austrian Wunderteam video 😇✌.

Always happy to hear my country mentioned, even if it's in this context. Hate Salzburg though. 😂🇦🇹

The profit Braga makes in a decade, Benfica makes every couple of years. With Enzo and Darwin alone and Felix and... I guess it's important to not be predictable, but not having Benfica in top spot is just ridiculous, honestly.

proud to be part of the 0.9%

I feel like Alfie had a lot of coffee before recording this 😂

absolutely violated Everton in the intro

What about Frankfurt? As a fan i might be a little biased but jovic, haller, kolo muani, rebic, kostic, lindstroem, kamada and ndicka all came for small money and were sold for up to 100 mio. Also we did not just made money but also won the dfb pokal and euroleague in the last 7 years.

You look like Evan Ferguson with a blond wig on. Great vid.

Please can you talk about the problem at southend united

Union St Gilles deserves an honorable mention i think, but they are a sisterclub of brighton so maybe that doesnt count.

Kek whenever I heard of braga I don't even know if they played in Portugal, spain or Italy. The only thing I know about them is that they didnt play in EPL

16:22 I think Napoli deserves an honourable mention

Can you do the rise of non-league side Aveley FC?

Napoli deserved a mention surely!

Nearly of quarter of a billion from Chelsea for Potter, Cucurella, Caicedo. Brighton could rebuild their stadium for cash.

😂😂😂😂😂..... LOVING Alfie's content..... Trying Portuguese 😂😂😂

The hipsters choice to make the list would probably be FC Nordsjælland. The transfer sums aren’t crazy since it’s generally cheaper to buy out of Denmark than say the Netherlands or France. They do however have crazy profit margins on their player sales and it’s basically what keeps the club wealthy and successful.

Babe wake up, new HITC Sevens video

Well, in pre-Rangnick era R** B*** Salzburg has just won the league because of the sheer amount of money they spent, and even this wasn't enough sometimes...

Wow I really did not expect Brentford on this list

No one talking about the chase reference at the start 💀

"In a slightly different vein" I see what you did there

Athletico Paranaense deserves to be mentioned here for sure

Ben white is a solid purchase for us

Union Berlin could've been among the honourable mentions.

The breakout at Brighton, to being sold to Chelsea and doing shit is a pipeline that needs legit research done on it

Ah yes, GNK Dinamo Zagreb :) This season if we don't change some major players which we are going to lose or just lost like Šutalo to Ajax, we are f up. On other serious note: just look at Dani Olmo, Modrić, Kovačić, Brozović, Kranjčar Niko, Gvardiol and others who were at some times part of Dinamo and you will see how this club was managed by Mamić brothers (Alfie made video about it few years ago FYI).

"Most of you probably dont spend a lot of time watching or even thinking about Portuguese Football". Me, one of your 0.9% Portuguese Viewers: "How did you know!?!?!" (I only see Benfica games and only care about my club xD)

Wouldn't put Braga and Red Bull over Porto personally but otherwise good list

enjoy yr video.... love ⚽️ football , former player...

Brighton's recruitment is without peer - the seafront has the pier!