Lloyd’s of London has made its pick for the winner of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
The oldest insurance market in the world has selected France as the favourites to leave Russia with the trophy, based on the insurable value of the squad.
Despite having looked sluggish in parts in a win against Australia this weekend, the French national side has a total insurable value of more than $2.5 billion (£1.43bn), with their average player valued at more than $83 million (£46.7m).
With Paul Pogba, Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele representing France in the tournament, it is easy to see why they came out on top thanks to a total transfer fee paid of more than $560 million (£314m) for the trio.
The predictions, put together by Lloyd’s and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr), had England surprisingly in second place with a total insurable value of just over $2 billion (£1.17bn), followed by Brazil at $1.96 billion (£1.1bn).
Australia, who battled well against France in their 2-1 defeat, come in at 27th out of the 32 teams in competition with a total insurable value of $180 million (£101m)
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Gallagher is the official insurance broker of Football Federation Australia.