• Man United stock has performed worse than all major European teams in Finder’s league table
• In contrast, Benfica’s shares have risen over 108% since the start of the year
• On average, the share price of each team has risen over 21% in 2025

18 September, 2025, LONDON –

The new football season is upon us, but some clubs around Europe are battling it out in an equally competitive environment – the stock market.

The personal finance comparison site Finder has compiled the performance of the publicly listed football clubs across Europe since the beginning of the year in a league table and it’s bad news for the two British clubs on the list, Manchester United and Celtic.

Man United have started poorly on the pitch, crashing out of the Carabao cup and losing to Man City in the derby last week, and things are looking even bleaker off the pitch. Of the 10 clubs tracked, Man United sit dead last (at the close of markets on Weds 17th September), losing -9.4% since the beginning of the year. Their stock price has generally mirrored their struggles on the pitch in 2025 and had lost -28% at their lowest point in March.

Celtic are firmly mid table, up 1.5% since the beginning of the year. This puts them 7th out of the 10 clubs. Their shares hit a high of 16% in July, but this sunk afterwards as they failed to qualify for the Champions League.

The only other team to have experienced negative stock performance so far this year is the Italian giant, Juventus. Their stock is down -1.3%, possibly due to a few different financial concerns off the pitch.

Despite these 2 clubs currently being in the red for 2025, many clubs are performing well in their respective stock markets. In fact, across all teams in the research, the average return is a massive 21.4%.

This is helped in no small part by the success of the Portuguese club, Benfica. Their shares are up a staggering 108.8% since the beginning of the year, with player sales and commercial deals boosting their stock performance. This off field success comes despite the team not winning the Portuguese league last season. That honour went to Sporting Lisbon, who sit 5th in Finder’s football stock table, with their shares up 6.4%.

Danish club Copenhagen sit 2nd in the stock table, having seen their shares rise 49.6% so far in 2025 and they are closely followed by another Portuguese side, Porto, whose shares are up 41.8%.

Commenting on football stocks as an investment, George Sweeney DipFA, of the comparison site, Finder, said:

“It’s interesting to see that poor performance on-field can sometimes translate into below par results financially, but not always. It begs an interesting question, are the teams not living up to their fans’ expectations because of unsteady finances, or vice versa?

“It appears that decent performances and the position of league finishes doesn’t always translate to positive share price performance, but it certainly helps. Like with any investment, the stock price of football clubs will move based on the underlying financials and strength of the club.

“The rise of easy-to-use trading apps means some football club stocks are easier than ever to invest in. However, unlike many other investments, there’s an outsized emotional factor that has to be accounted for. Football clubs aren’t all about cash flows and balance sheets. Yet, the very essence of what makes these teams special is also what adds a unique layer of uncertainty to them as investments. So, prospective investors have plenty to think about when it comes to devising the right strategy and approach to take.”

Methodology:

Finder sourced a range of real and deepfake videos (see sources on the page) and then showed short clips of these to the British public. Finder then commissioned Censuswide to carry out a nationally representative survey of adults aged 18+ who had to guess if the videos were real or fake. A total of 2,000 people were questioned throughout Great Britain between 28 July and 30 July 2025, with representative quotas for gender, age and region.