Manchester City rank above Real Madrid and Man United with sixth most profitable academy in Europe

Manchester City have raised significant funds from academy sales and are just above Real Madrid in the rankings but have blown Manchester United out of the water

Manchester City have the sixth most profitable academy over the last 10 years, as revealed in the latest CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post. City have been particularly good sellers under Pep Guardiola, with Benfica, Ajax, Chelsea, Lyon and Sporting CP the only European clubs to earn more from academy sales in the last decade.

Cole Palmer's £42.5million to Chelsea forms 12 per cent of City's £352.7million generated since 2016 with 34 other players making up that total. Blues duo Romeo Lavia and Liam Delap also came through City's academy before moving on for sizeable fees, with the same applied to Jadon Sancho, Oscar Bobb and Brahim Diaz.

The latter is now at Real Madrid who are directly behind City in the revenue standings while Manchester United are all the way back in nineteenth having raised £236.6million. Their most profitable academy sale also involved Chelsea, with Alejandro Garnacho completing a £40million switch to Stamford Bridge last summer.

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Arguably smaller clubs such as Stade Rennais, Bayer Leverkusen and RB Salzburg all rank higher than City's local rivals, having sold talented young stars to major European clubs. Benjamin Sesko, who is now at United, remains as the biggest academy transfer fee for the latter following his £21million move to RB Leipzig.

Several South American clubs such as River Plate, Palmeiras and Flamengo have also made more money from academy sales over the last 10 years. City actually helped another Brazilian club, Atletico Mineiro, increase its income through the purchase of Savinho.

City are only marginally behind Sporting and Lyon in the rankings over a 10-year period but are above both for sales in the last five years. Chelsea top that list with £319.5m raised, while City have accumulated £277.6m.

They could very feasibly go above their Premier League rivals over the coming years, though. That is because of the next crop coming through, with Nico O'Reilly as the obvious standout, especially following his Carabao Cup final heroics.

Given his impact since breaking into the senior team, it is highly unlikely that City would want to sell unless a mammoth bid from outside England was submitted.

It is far more likely someone like Rico Lewis moves on in the next few transfer windows as he attempts to find more consistent minutes. The versatile 21-year-old has started just three Premier League games this season.

Injury prevented him from featuring in four games before the March international break, but he played the full 90 minutes of England's two under-21 European Championship qualifying matches, with a goal arriving in one of those.

Lewis' breakthrough initially came in the Carabao Cup, with other City youngsters such as Jaden Heskey and Reigan Heskey getting minutes in this season's competition.

Max Alleyne also enjoyed a frantic few weeks with City's defensive injury crisis seeing him recalled from a loan at Watford to play in five consecutive games.