City make £60m more than rivals in academy player sales

A staggering amount of money when you consider that teams are mostly investing in the potential of young players, Manchester City have been able to make big money from selling their academy stars in recent years.

Of course the most notable sale was that of Jadon Sancho. The English starlet who is currently tearing up the Bundesliga for Borussia Dortmund, was sold for a fee believed to be around  £7.5 million; this now seems to be a bargain for the German side, but at the time was a big outlay on such a young player. 

Other key departures include young left-back Pablo Maffeo, who was sold to VFB Stuttgart for £8.8 million this past summer.  As well as Jason Denayer, who joined Lyon for  £12m in August, and keeper Angus Gunn, who moved to Southampton for £13.5m a week later.

Furthermore, Manchester City have been coy in their negotiations; not content to sell the players for great prices, they insert huge sell-on clauses into deals, in order to squeeze as much profit  as possible out of each sale. 

Given the huge amounts of money pumped into the academy system in England, particularly into the top six club, but the lack of first team berths available, many European clubs are routinely circling to poach the next best talents for a good price. 

For many players themselves, a path to a regular first team spot seems better found abroad.

One only needs to look at City's Sancho and Arsenal's Reiss Nelson in the Bundesliga,  City's Patrick Roberts in Girona or the numerous Chelsea youngsters at Dutch side Vitesse Arnhem, to realise that a move abroad may be the only way to secure regular competitive football at the top level.

Since 2014, 42 academy players have been sold by  City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal and  United; an enormous £113,714,252 million has been raised from these sales (not including extra for sell-on clauses). 

Unfortunately for the young stars learning their trade at the top clubs in England, the trend does not look like slowing down, with only the very best being able to become part of the first team squads of the country's elite. Phil Foden being case in point.