The Premier League made another huge show of economic might in the closed transfer market on Thursday night. Is that, according to data from the site transfermarkt.com, clubs at the top level of English football have invested some 2244.9 million euros in footballers, an amount that beats all world records in one season, that is, excluding the winter window , which will take place in January.
The Premier League’s supremacy over other championships played around the world is such that the other four leagues that make up the “big 5” – Spain, Germany, Italy and France – have collectively spent 2292 million euros , in other words, only EUR 48 million more than England alone.
Interestingly, since 2014/15, the amount invested in the summer by Premier League decals has always exceeded €1 billion, with the window ending Thursday exceeding €2 billion for the first time. If we take into account the last ten seasons, only in the summer of 2019/20, the last window before the start of the pandemic, there was rapprochement between Spain and Italy vis-à-vis England. At the time, English clubs invested a total of €1,543 million, with the Spaniards reaching 1,376 million and the Italians 1,225 million, records that still represent records in those championships today. In fact, this was the only time the Spanish League surpassed one billion euros, while that figure was surpassed two more times by the Italian Serie A (2017/18 and 2018/19). Germany and France have never reached this threshold, with caps of €748 million and €713 million respectively, also in what can be considered the thick summer window, before the start of the covid-19 pandemic, in the winter of 2020 in Europe . .
In a phase that can already be considered as post-pandemic, English clubs are showing an economic strength that has nothing to do with the others, as the recovery has been quite rapid and dizzying, as they are far behind the emblems that make up the Italian Serie A let themselves be. away. , which reached a total of 749 million in investments this summer, behind France’s Ligue 1, which reached 554 million euros in investments and Spain’s La Liga, which reached 505 million, slightly more than the Bundesliga’s 484.
I Liga invested 170.8 million
Far, far from this investment volume is the Portuguese I Liga, which, however, broke its investment record this summer and reached 170.8 million euros, of which 62.3 million was spent by Benfica, 48 million by FC Porto, 41.9 million by Sporting and 17.75 million by the other 15 clubs that are part of the championship.
Interestingly, the previous investment record in Portugal was broken in the summer of 2020/21, when it reached €169 million in the middle of the pandemic, which is explained by the fact that at the time Benfica made the largest investment of its history on the order of 115 million euros.
However, this record of investment by I Liga clubs was offset by EUR 432.3 million from the sale of footballers, the largest share of which was held by Benfica, with EUR 127.3 million, followed by Sporting, which sold 119.8 million euros. million euros and FC Porto had 86 million. It should be noted that the remaining 99.2 million euros was divided by the remaining 15 decals.
In the list of clubs that received the most money from player transfers, eagles and lions appear in third and fourth place respectively, only behind Ajax (216.2 million euros) and Manchester City (159.9 million). FC Porto only appears in 14th place, according to Transfermarkt data.
On the other side is Chelsea, which invested €281.9 million this summer, followed by Manchester United (238), West Ham (182), Tottenham (169.9) and Nottingham Forest (161.9). Only in sixth and seventh place are the first clubs outside the Premier League: Barcelona with €153 million invested and Paris Saint-Germain with €147.5 million.
It should also be noted that Chelsea and Manchester United are the clubs with the greatest imbalance between player purchases and sales with negative balances of €227.2 million and €226.5 million respectively. The first non-English club in this ranking is Barcelona with a negative balance of 115 million euros.
Source: El heraldo
