Football Manager 22 was recently released on PC, Xbox, and Mobile. With its newest iteration, more players have the chance to try the management game than ever before, thanks to the game's day one inclusion in Microsoft's Game Pass service.
Players who opt to take control of their club's finances are in for a tough time in Football Manager 22, as teams worldwide are feeling the effects of the pandemic. Although every team has been affected by this, the elite clubs are still able to flex extraordinary financial power. These rich clubs can help their manager make new signings, renew key contracts, upgrade training facilities, and more.
Updated July 6, 2022, by Ritwik Mitra: Football Manager 22 is the latest entry in a series that prides itself on realism over everything else. Taking control of a team and laying waste to the opposition through a combination of great strategies and the like makes for a fun and interesting time. The game can be slightly overwhelming, but it won't take too long to grasp the basics. If players don't want to be frustrated in their playthrough of the game, then here are the teams with the biggest transfer budget that aspiring managers can exploit.
15 Chelsea F.C.
- Overall Balance: £84m ($101m)
Chelsea's placement should come as no surprise. After all, the team has been a financial power in the sport since Russian businessman Roman Abramovich controversially became the club's owner in 2003.
Chelsea has been a trophy magnet ever since Abramovich's takeover, winning two Champions League trophies and five Premier League titles. Abramovich may no longer be the club's owner, but their financial advantage still makes Chelsea a tempting option in the game.
14 Hoffenheim
- Overall Balance: £85m ($102m)
Hoffenheim is one of the historic German clubs that is a ton of fun to manage. The seesaw form of the club is a source of great worry, and only a skilled manager can stabilize results and possibly even net some silverware!
With a massive transfer budget, getting good players should not be a challenge. However, the staff of the club should be overhauled slightly to get the most out of both established players and budding talent.
13 Zenit St. Petersburg
- Overall Balance: £87m ($104m)
Zenit St. Petersburg is Russia's biggest club. They have participated in their fair share of European competitions with varying degrees of success and have made a name for themselves this way.
Zenit has a pretty great transfer budget for players who want to try their hand at the Russian League. With enough big names, a playthrough with Zenit will be anything but stale and boring.
12 Southampton F.C.
- Overall Balance: £87m ($104m)
Southhampton is a club known for generating great talent that most clubs tend to poach without a second thought, especially when it comes to Liverpool. So, it shouldn't be too surprising for fans to learn that their transfer budget is also pretty solid.
The fact that this team has more spending power than Chelsea speaks volumes. Players who want to try their hand at helping a mid-table club to achieve glorious results should try their luck out with Southampton.
11 Ajax
- Overall Balance: £89m ($107m)
Ajax is the biggest and most successful club in the Eredivisie (sorry, Feyenoord fans). The club has churned out some amazing talent that has made a solid name for themselves on the European stage.
With the club's amazing youth facilities and high transfer budget, controlling Ajax is going to be a blast in the game. There's a genuine shout for the team to win the Champions League if the squad is built up and managed properly.
10 Real Madrid
- Overall Balance: £112m ($150m)
The LaLiga has been going through a tough time lately, with many of the league's top players moving to the more competitive Premier League, or in the case of Lionel Messi and Sergio Ramos, heading over to Paris to join PSG.
Real Madrid's placement on this list, and eye-watering £189m ($260m) bid for Mbappe in the summer, may indicate that everything is going swimmingly for the Spanish club. However, Real Madrid would once be topping this list. The LaLiga's fall in prominence will continue to harm Madrid, who seem to have failed in their quest to jump ship and start the controversial Super League.
9 AS Monaco
- Overall Balance: £117m ($157m)
AS Monaco's placement may surprise some people, particularly due to the team's inconsistency in the league in recent years. However, AS Monaco have maintained financial comfort thanks to their owner, Ekaterina Rybolovleva, whose father is Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev.
Along with their ownership, player sales have also helped AS Monaco earn a spot on this list. The team received some hefty fees over the years for players like Kylian Mbappe, Bernardo Silva, Anthony Martial, James Rodríguez, and Thomas Lemar.
8 Arsenal F.C.
- Overall Balance: £120m ($161m)
The Premier League teams have had a hard time in recent years, and are fast approaching the unfortunate milestone of two decades without a league title. Following two eighth-place finishes in a row, a Premier League title still looks many years away for the London side.
However, this team does have the financial power to make a serious charge, making them a tantalizing challenge in Football Manager 22. Arsenal are owned by Stan Kroenke, an American businessman who owns a plethora of sports teams, including the Denver Nuggets, the Colorado Avalanche, and the Los Angeles Rams.
7 Man City
- Overall Balance: £140m ($169m)
Man City absolutely rocked their transfer windows after being acquired majorly by the Abu Dhabi United Group. This spending behavior was what led to the club attaining the bulk of their success under the new ownership.
With £140m million in the club's coffers, making moves in the transfer market would be a blast. It helps that Man City has so much depth that certain members of the squad can be sold off at valuable rates without having to worry about squad depth.
6 Liverpool F.C.
- Overall Balance: £233m ($313m)
Liverpool F.C are owned by American investment company Fenway Sports Group, who also own the Boston Red Sox. The ownership is very divisive with Liverpool fans at the moment, as although the side have won a Champions League and Premier League trophy in recent years, their lack of spending is starting to frustrate the fanbase.
This lack of spending makes Liverpool a deceivingly tough team to manage in Football Manager 22. The manager will inherit a ready-made team, but they will have the unenviable task of filling Jürgen Klopp's shoes. They will also have disappointingly small transfer budgets to work with when the team inevitably needs rebuilding in a few years. Suffice to say, if the manager doesn't win a trophy in their first season, the pressure will begin to crank up.
5 Paris Saint-Germain
- Overall Balance: £240m ($323m)
Paris Saint-Germain are owned by the Qatar Investment Authority, which took over the French club in 2011 and instantly made PSG one of the richest teams in the world. In the past decade, Paris Saint-Germain has built a dream team of talented players, with Lionel Messi, Neymar, Kylian Mbappe, Sergio Ramos, and Gianluigi Donnarumma all joining the team since the big-money takeover.
Picking Paris Saint-Germain in Football Manager 22 is essentially the game's easy mode. The other sides in Ligue 1 have nowhere near the same financial power as the Paris side.
4 Manchester United
- Overall Balance: £246m ($331m)
Manchester United have been struggling on the pitch in recent years, and are approaching a full decade without a league title. To put it bluntly, the side has massively underperformed since Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement, with managers David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, José Mourinho, and Ole Gunnar Solskjær all struggling to get the side back to their winning ways.
Manchester United provides a clear and tempting challenge in Football Manager 22: take the team back to the pinnacle of the Premier League. Their financial power is an advantage in this, but that doesn't mean it'll be a walk in the park.
3 Newcastle United
- Overall Balance: £258m ($347m)
Newcastle United have sky-rocketed up the sport's rich-list in recent months, following the purchase from a Saudi Arabia-led consortium for $415 million. This purchase has suddenly made the northern side the wealthiest team in the sport, as the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund is valued at an incredible $429 billion.
With Newcastle United's team being current relegation contenders, this gives Football Manager 22 player a dream scenario. They'll have enormous sums of money to rebuild the Magpies in any way that they choose.
2 Bayern Munich
- Overall Balance: £304m ($409m)
German side Bayern Munich are on track to achieving an incredible feat. The side has won the last nine Bundesliga titles in a row, and all signs point to them making it ten out of a possible ten.
This dominance of the German league has, of course, helped Bayern Munich become a financial powerhouse. Moreover, the club's dominance makes it easy for them to cherry-pick players from other German clubs when their contracts expire, helping them build a fantastic team at a reasonable price.
1 Tottenham Hotspur
- Overall Balance: £380m ($511m)
Tottenham Hotspur's placement at the top of this list may come as a surprise to some people. The London side doesn't often flex its financial muscle, and the team hasn't won a trophy since 2008. Still, the team has recently built one of the most impressive stadiums in all of sport and is well run by the financially shrewd businessman Daniel Levy.
Tottenham Hotspur are a tempting option in Football Manager 22. The next manager to win a trophy for the north London side will instantly become a fan favorite.
Football Manager 22 is now available on PC, Xbox, and Mobile.