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France is the most valuable team in the 2026 World Cup with a squad valued at 1.53 billion euros, according to an analysis of squad values by groups published by Sportingpedia using data from Transfermarkt.
The tournament, the first in history with 48 participating teams, features squads with a combined value of 17.570 million euros, but the wealth is far from being distributed evenly.
Only four teams surpass the 1 billion euros mark: France (1.530 million euros), England (1.310 million euros), Spain (1.260 million euros), and Portugal (1.020 million euros).
Germany stands just outside that elite group with 998 million euros, while Brazil is the highest-ranked non-European team, in sixth place with 912.2 million euros.
The Netherlands (€837.2 million) and Argentina (€818.5 million) rank seventh and eighth, respectively, followed by Norway in ninth place with €601 million—largely driven by the value of Erling Haaland—and Belgium in tenth with €542.9 million.
Seven of the ten most valuable teams in the tournament belong to UEFA, reflecting European dominance in the global football market.
Côte d'Ivoire is the highest-rated African national team, ranked 11th with 530.9 million euros, just ahead of Turkey (494.2 million euros), Morocco (488.2 million euros), and Senegal (472.9 million euros), which fall below the 500 million euro mark.
The 11 teams above that figure account for 10.36 billion euros, 59% of the tournament's total value, while the remaining 37 share only 7.2 billion euros.
At the opposite end of the ranking is Jordan, with a squad valued at only 19.83 million euros: the French squad is worth 77.2 times more.
France alone exceeds the combined value of the 14 least valuable teams in the tournament—Australia, Uzbekistan, Tunisia, Cape Verde, Haiti, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, Panama, Iran, Curacao, Iraq, Qatar, and Jordan—whose total amounts to 600.48 million euros.
The most and least valuable groups
By groups, Group I —comprising France, Norway, Senegal, and Iraq— is the most valuable with 2,624.95 million euros, representing 14.9% of the total value of the tournament.
Group L (England, Croatia, Ghana, and Panama) ranks second with €1,957.23 million, followed by Group E (Germany, Ivory Coast, Ecuador, and Curacao) with €1,931.33 million.
At the opposite end, Group A —comprising Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, and the Czech Republic— is the least valuable with 572.88 million euros and the only group without any team valued over 200 million euros.
The gap between the most and least valuable group reaches 2.052 billion euros: Group I is worth 4.58 times more than Group A.
The expanded format of 48 teams has allowed for more nations on the global stage, but as the analysis concludes, "financial strength remains concentrated in a small number of elite teams," with France, England, and Spain setting the individual benchmark and Group I clearly standing out above the rest of the draw.
The tournament kicks off on June 11 and runs until July 19, 2026 across 16 venues in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
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