WITH club football taking a break for the international window, it is an opportunity to take a look at the cold, hard facts from the summer transfer window that closed last month.
In the summer window, French players were the most in demand amongst Europe’s five biggest competitions - Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1.
In data provided in FIFA’s Transfer Window Analysis report, there were 164 transfers involving players eligible for Les Bleus, who generated a jaw dropping $US 402 million in transfer fees.
While English players accounted for the next most transfers, 160, most of those transactions involved movement to Scotland and Wales – the amount spent on those players doesn’t come in the top five for nations generating transfer revenue, which is rounded out by Portugal, Spain, Germany and Argentina.
There were 147 Spanish players transferred amongst the big five in the last window, with Spain and Brazil rounding out the top five nations who contributed players to the transfer market.
While the quality of player being bought from England isn’t as high as elsewhere, the evidence of England reaching its own ether in terms of financial clout has never been more tangible – despite the ‘big five’ also pushing further away from the rest of the pack.
The other 206 countries that were involved in transactions in the last window were involved in almost four times the quantity of transfers as the ‘Big Five’ were involved in. Yet, the elite group spent almost three times more on transfers than the other 206 countries combined.
Staggering.
Even more confounding is the largesse in England thanks to the latest television deal.
The three biggest spenders in the Premier League splashed out $US 512m. Compare that to Germany, the window’s second biggest spenders, where the entire country spent just $US 10m more than England’s top three spenders.
English clubs bought more from everywhere. There were seven Australians, compared to one in the last window.
But it is Germany, and the Bundesliga, that is benefitting from English football’s lavish spending.
In the last two summers, English spending has been $US 254m and $US 226m on players in Germany. That’s in excess of 70% of all money received by German football in the transfer market.
There can be no question that German football has looked to invest this money, with the country the world’s second largest spender, more than doubling its output from the year before.
Interestingly, this money is being re-invested in gems outside the ‘big five’.
Despite earning 82% of its revenue from its ‘Big 5’ rivals, German clubs spent on Portuguese ($US 117m), Austrian ($US 64m) and Swiss players ($US 40m), and 54% of the country’s spending was on players under 21 years of age.
While Germany are searching for gems, England is splashing out of them. A benefit of the television revenue in England is English clubs can pay ‘overs’ for fringe, or blossoming players.
With the world’s truly marquee players in La Liga, English clubs are looking at the next tier of star, and the average age of incoming England transfers is 22 years and nine months – the youngest of the big five leagues.
But, the problem that many experts have tipped is clear, with the ability to pay overs becoming a curse: English clubs struggle to off-load players who don’t want to leave. Why would you, given the wages you can get? While money spent by English clubs has rocketed, there was a 36% drop in the money spent on players at English clubs, with $US 262 the lowest since 2012. The average transfer fee was an underwhelming $US 2.9m.
Meanwhile, a report released this week by the CIES Football Observatory has revealed Manchester United’s squad, assembled for €718m is the most expensive in Europe’s ‘Big 5’ leagues, ahead of Real Madrid’s £553m squad.
Europe’s 10 most expensive squads (million £)
1) Manchester United, 626
2) Real Madrid, 553
3 Manchester City, 533
4) Barcelona, 423
5) Chelsea, 419
6) PSG, 397
7) Juventus, 345
8) Arsenal, 332
9) Bayern Munich, 312
10) Liverpool, 310
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