Belgium will boast the most valuable squad at Euro 2016, with their 23 players worth over 50 million pounds ($72.54 million) more than world champions Germany, according to a study.
Marc Wilmots’s squad are worth 318.9 million pounds, according to an analysis by bookmakers Profit Accumulator, which looked at the most recent transfer fees paid for the 23 players representing each nation at the tournament in France.
That puts Belgium well ahead of the next most valuable squads from Germany (264.5 million), England (189.7m) and France (183m).
Belgium’s squad have an average transfer fee of 13.9 million pounds, with Manchester City’s Kevin de Bruyne topping the list having joined the English club for 55 million.
Other bumper transfer fees that have boosted the overall value of the Belgium squad include striker Christian Benteke, who moved to Liverpool for 32.5 million pounds, and Eden Hazard, who joined Chelsea for 32 million, according to the study.
It also found that the 552 players at the tournament were collectively last transferred for just over 2.2 billion pounds, while bottom of the transfer fee table were Ukraine, whose squad have a combined value of 6.2 million.
Spain’s Real Madrid own the two most expensive players at Euro 2016 in Wales’s Gareth Bale (86 million pounds) and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo (80m).
The study said that if Bale and Ronaldo were a team on their own they would be the sixth most expensive side in the tournament and together they were more expensive than the entire Italy squad. ($1 = 0.6893 pounds)
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