Manchester City have assembled the first billion-euro squad, says a report by the CIES Football Observatory.
Premier League champions City, who were bought by the Abu Dhabi United Group in 2008, have spent 1.014bn euros (£906m) on their current players.
They spent 32 times the amount Norwich have laid out, the report found.
Paris St-Germain (913m euros) and Real Madrid (902m euros) are next in the list, with Manchester United (751m euros) the second English team.
CIES, the football statistics research group based in Switzerland, looked at the senior players in each team in all four of Europe’s biggest leagues – Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga.
Paderborn, promoted to the German top flight in the summer, were found to have the cheapest squad – 4m euros (£3.57m).
The top 10
1 Manchester City – 1.014bn
2 Paris St-Germain – 913m
3 Real Madrid – 902m
4 Manchester United – 751m
5 Juventus – 719m
6 Barcelona – 697m
7 Liverpool – 639m
8 Chelsea – 561m
9 Atletico Madrid – 550m
10 Arsenal – 498m
Selected others
11 Everton – 486m
12 Tottenham Hotspur – 465m
19 Leicester City – 312m
21 West Ham United – 259m
