Chelsea broke the record for money invested by a club in the same season by spending 329.5 ME (million euros) in the winter market, which closed on Tuesday, after 281.99 ME last summer, for a total of 611.49 ME. These figures helped the English Football League beat its own investment record in the winter market.
About a fifth of that amount comes from the purchase of Argentine midfielder Enzo Fernández from Benfica, who motivated the ‘blues’ to pay 121 ME, a million above the release clause, in the last part of the winter period in favor of the most expensive reinforcement in your story.
Available soon. pic.twitter.com/z5uaH5DB44
-Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) February 1, 2023
Chelsea’s unlimited pockets come from the consortium led by American billionaire Todd Boehly, which also includes Mykhaylo Mudryk (former Shakhtar Donetsk, 70 ME), Benoît Badiashile (former Monaco, 38), Noni Madueke (former PSV Eindhoven, 35) , Malo Gusto (ex-Lyon, 30), Andrey Santos (ex-Vasco da Gama, 12.5), David Datro Fofana (ex-Molde, 12) and João Félix, whose loan from Atlético de Madrid was worth 11 ME.
The details of the unusual long-term ties – Enzo and Mudryk signed until June 2031 – are causing Londoners to extend the amortization of an operation for a longer period of time, circumventing UEFA’s financial fair-play rules.
Followed on the Premier League spending podium are Southampton and leaders Arsenal, the new club of Jakub Kiwior (ex-Spezia, 25 ME), Leandro Trossard (ex-Brighton, 24) and Jorginho (ex-Chelsea, 11.3), who Cédric Soares transferred to Fulham, from Portuguese coach Marco Silva.
Newcastle, Liverpool and Manchester City respectively welcomed Anthony Gordon (ex-Everton, 45.6), Cody Gakpo (ex-PSV, 42) and Máximo Perrone (ex-Vélez, 11), while Arnaut Danjuma (ex-Villarreal) and Pedro Porro (ex-Sporting) were transferred to Tottenham.
After breaking with Cristiano Ronaldo, who went to the Saudis from Al Nassr and became the athlete with the highest salary ever in the modality, Manchester United also opted to settle loans, after he lost Marcel Sabitzer (ex- Bayern Munich) with Wout Weghorst (ex-Burnley) and Jack Butland (ex-Crystal Palace).
In France, champions Paris Saint-Germain bought no new players and temporarily released Keylor Navas to Nottingham Forest, in a month in which it ‘assembled’ five ME for the final sale of former Sporting player Pablo Sarabia to Wolverhampton.
Vitinha left Sporting de Braga to dominate Ligue 1, meaning 32 ME went to Marseille treasury, who paid another 8 ME to Angers for Azzedine Ounahi, one of Mundial2022’s revelations, and had Ruslan Malinovskyi on loan from Atlanta.
One of the biggest surprises in early 2023 was the transfer of João Cancelo from English champions Manchester City to German ‘deca’ Bayern Munich, whose long absence from goalkeeper Manuel Neuer was supplied by Yann Sommer (former Borussia Mönchengladbach, eight ME ) , who also transferred from Ajax to Daley Blind at no cost.
Julien Duranville (former Anderlecht, 8.5 ME) and Julian Ryerson (former Union Berlin, 5 ME) joined Borussia Dortmund, who loaned Thorgan Hazard to PSV and saw Eintracht Frankfurt negotiate the loan of Philipp Max at Eindhoven, in addition to signing Paxten Aaronson of the Philadelphia Union (four ME), against an idle Leipzig.
When Josip Juranovic (ex-Celtic, 8.55 ME), Aïssa Laïdouni (ex-Ferencváros, 4.1) and Jérôme Roussillon (ex-Wolgsburg) reinforced Union Berlin, which pulled out of signing Isco, Borussia Mönchengladbach chose Jonas Omlin (ex- Montpellier, nine ME) to target.
Spanish and European champions Real Madrid shared a similar reality, with leader FC Barcelona loaning Héctor Bellerín to Sporting and acquiring three MEs in the sale of Memphis Depay to Atlético de Madrid, the new destination of Matt Doherty (ex-Tottenham), in contrast to Matheus Cunha, on loan at Wolverhampton, and former Porto player Felipe (Nottingham, 2.3).
Sevilla welcomed mercenaries Loïc Badé (ex-Rennes), Pape Gueye (ex-Marseille) and Bryan Gil (ex-Tottenham) and saved Lucas Ocampos from Ajax, while Espanyol ‘ruled’ La Liga, with eight from 13.2 ME in total by César Montes (ex Monterrey).
Without the financial strength of other times, AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus passed the market without making significant reinforcements, at a time when the Turin club was penalized with a 15-point deduction in the 2022/23 edition of the Italian league, due to alleged visible financial irregularities in player transfers.
The ‘Bianconeri’ benefited from the transfer from Weston McKennie to Leeds United (1.2 ME), from which Diego Llorente was loaned to Roma, from José Mourinho, who went to get Ola Solbakken from Bodø/Glimt and joined the provisional departure of Eldor Shomurodov (Spezia), Gonzalo Villar (Getafe) and Matías Viña (Bournemouth) to the final against Filippo Tripi (Mura).
Leaders Napoli temporarily bet on Pierluigi Gollini (ex-Atalanta) and Bartosz Bereszynski (ex-Sampdoria), freeing up Salvatore Sirigu for Fiorentina, who led the spending line among Italian clubs, by Antonín Barák (ex-Hellas Verona, 8.5 ME ) to take over ), Abdelhamid Sabiri (ex-Sampdoria, 2.5) or Josip Brekalo (ex-Wolfsburg, 1.5).
The market remains open in countries such as Austria, Mexico, Turkey, Serbia, Switzerland, Argentina, Russia, China, Poland, Ukraine or Brazil, with players at the end of their contracts free to commit to another club for 2022/23.
Chelsea helps the Premier League break winter investment record
The 20 Premier League clubs had expenses of 824.81 ME in the first month of 2023, more than the 561.4 ME recorded in the middle of the 2017/18 season, representing an unprecedented 3,075 ME in the sum of the 2,250 ME expenditures in early 2022/23.
Chelsea has been the protagonist in the most recent summer and winter windows, setting the record for money spent by a club in the same season – 611.49 ME – held by the Spaniards of FC Barcelona since 2017/18, with an expense of 380.1 MIJ.
Having already released 281.99 ME last summer when recruiting eight reinforcements, the ‘blues’, who are even a modest 10th place after 20 days in the English League, invested a further 329.5 ME last month, bringing them renewed their maximum gains.
Leader for the second consecutive winter, the Premier League won almost three times the money invested (253.47 ME) by the other four major continental leagues: France (124.9), Germany (68.27), Spain (31.88 ) and Italy (28.42).
If investment in 2022/23 increased significantly in England (479.33 ME) compared to the comparable period of the previous season, this increase was weaker in Ligue 1 (55.48 ME) and in the Bundesliga (5.52 ME), with La Liga (-46.87) and Serie A (-156.61) in the opposite direction.
These last four countries had broken spending records before 2019/20, a season marked by the sudden halt of competitions due to the covid-19 pandemic, to which the financial consequences, those of the war in Ukraine almost a year ago, were added. affected the overall liquidity of the clubs in subsequent market windows.
The exception to the cuts is in the Premier League, which had nine clubs in the ‘top 10’ of the most spenders in the world: Chelsea (329.5 ME), Southampton (63.25), Arsenal (60.3) , Bournemouth (56.2), Newcastle (49.35), Liverpool (42), Leeds (41.2), Wolverhampton (38.51) and Leicester (31), with French Marseille in eighth place (40).
These English clubs also top the ranking of the worst buy-to-sell balances, with leadership again emphasized by Chelsea (-318.2 ME), who only ‘earned’ 11.3 ME on the sale of the Italian Jorginho to the rival and championship leader Arsenal.
Benfica (18th) is the only Portuguese club in the “top 50” of the biggest spenders, but it clearly leads the income table (128.8 ME), in which Sporting de Braga is fifth, compared to the 32 ME received from the sale of Vitinha to the French from Marseilles.
619.14 of the 666.14 ME involved in 18 of the 20 biggest transfers came from the treasury of Premier League clubs, making the Portuguese First League again one of the big beneficiaries of this purchasing power, with 126 ME won from two athletes – in addition to Enzo Fernández, Pedro Porro was loaned by Sporting to Tottenham in exchange for 5 ME, with the English pledging to pay a further 40 ME at the end of the season.
According to the specialized portal Transfermarkt, the national elite ranks 11th in expenditure (20 ME) and second in income (161.1 ME), just behind France (199.1 ME), reflecting this bar in the best world balance between inflow and outflow (141.1). , which opposes the negative balance of the Premier League (-724.39), able to receive 100.42 ME.
List of the most expensive transfers at the market reopening for the 2022/23 season:
Enzo Fernández – from Benfica to Chelsea (Ing) – 121 million
Mykhaylo Mudryk – from Shakhtar Donetsk (Ucr) to Chelsea (Eng) – 70 million
Anthony Gordon – from Everton (Eng) to Newcastle (Eng) – 45.6 million
Cody Gakpo – from PSV Eindhoven (Holland) to Liverpool (Eng) – 42 million
Benoît Badiashile – from Monaco (Fra) to Chelsea – 38 million
Noni Madueke – from PSV Eindhoven (Netherlands) to Chelsea – 35 million
Vitinha – from Sporting de Braga to Marseille (Fra) – 32 million
Malo Gusto – from Lyon (Fra) to Chelsea (Ing) – 30 million
Georginio Rutter – from Hoffenheim (Ale) to Leeds United (Eng) – 28 million
Kamaldeen Sulemana – from Rennes (Fra) to Southampton (Eng) – 25 million
Jakub Kiwior – from Spezia (Ita) to Arsenal (Ing) – 25 million
Leandro Trossard – from Brighton (Eng) to Arsenal (Eng) – 24 million
Ilya Zabarnyi – from Dinamo Kiev (Ucr) to Bournemouth (Eng) – 22.7 million
Dango Ouattara – from Lorient (Fra) to Bournemouth (Eng) – 22.5 million
Danilo – from Palmeiras (Bra) to Nottingham Forest (Eng) – 20 million
Source: DN
