Man U named world’s top football brand

Despite narrowly missing out on the Premier League title and getting knocked out of the UEFA Champions League during the initial stages, United saw its brand value increase by 29% to $853m (£543m) during the last season.

The Brand Finance report, which ranks the top 50 football teams by estimating the value of trademarks and intellectual property, comes following a series of commercial deals for the team over the past 12 months, including deals with telecoms companies Globul and Du.

Rivals Manchester City boosted their brand value by 77% to $302m (£192m) during the last season with a string of marketing tie-ups with the likes of Nike, Electronic Arts and YouTube that saw it move ahead of AC Milan at eighth.

Champions League winners Chelsea remain fifth after a season where they also won the FA Cup.

Despite losing the final on Saturday (18 May), Bayern Munich jumped up two places to second to overtake Spanish champions Real Madrid with a $786m (497.8m) valuation. The German team generates the highest commercial revenues of any club at $254m (£160.9m) with lucrative deals with brands Audi, Adidas and Allianz.

Matt Hannagan, sports brand valuation analyst at Brand Finance warns that the club’s strategy to focus on deals with German brands could backfire and see the club become to reliant on its domestic fan base’.

He adds: “Bayern need to start building their brand in emerging markets or they will be left behind by relying too heavily on their domestic fan base.”

Generally, English and German clubs such as Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund respectively have risen in the annual rankings, while Italian and Spanish teams including Juventus and Barcelona have seen there value wane as a result of their domestic economies being in crisis.

Newcastle United is the newest member to the league at number 20th and the highest climbers are Ajax, jumping from 23 to 14 with a growth of 150% during the last season.