Colombia placed 8th out of 20 in a ranking of the financially “most (and least) valuable teams” of countries to compete in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
FutbolFinanzas, a website dedicated to reporting on the finances of the sport of soccer, released the report at the start of November.
The rankings were based primarily on the contract values for players.
Spain’s national team won this pool with little surprise as it is the top seated team in the current FIFA world rankings. Spain has a value of $731,373,863 million, according to FutbolFinanzas. This reflects nearly 23 times the ‘least valuable’ qualified team, Iran with a total of $32.250,637 million.
Iran ranks 49th in FIFA’s current standings.
While Colombia’s “Los Cafeteros,” are ranked 4th best team in the world according to FIFA’s standings, the “Tricolor” was only the eighth “most expensive team” of the 20 qualified soccer clubs, as stated by newspaper El Heraldo. Colombia was valued at $332,830,210 million.
“Colombia returns to the World Cup for the first time since France in 1998, and the value of the South American team is propelled by forward, Radamel Falcao. Another very important and valuable player is James Rodriguez,” said the report.
Most Expensive Teams in Brazil
Sources
- Las selecciones más valiosas de @elMundial Brasil 2014 (FutbolFinanzas)
- Colombia, octava selección más costosa de las que van al Mundial (El Heraldo)
- FIFA World Ranking (FIFA)