Premier League Breaks Transfer Window Record
Player transfer spending by Premier League clubs in the summer transfer window was a new record, according to analysis by Deloitte, with spending breaking the £600m mark for the first time.
A total £630m was spent on players by Premier League clubs, with £140m spent on the likes of Mesut Ozil, Marouane Fellaini and James McCarthy on deadline day.
Arsenal shattered their club record on Ozil, with the Real Madrid midfielder joining the Gunners for £42.4m, while Manchester United moved late to sign Everton’s Marouane Fellaini for £27.5m, with the deal confirmed to the media well after the 11pm cut-off.
The final combined outlay of the clubs is 29% up on the equivalent 2012 figure of £490m and £130m more than the previous record of £500m set in 2008.
Meanwhile, deadline day also saw a world record transfer broken, with the sale of Tottenham Hotspur’s Gareth Bale to Real Madrid for £85m.
Dan Jones, partner in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, commented: ‘The story of this summer transfer window is of new records: a new record for Premier League spending as well as a new world transfer record fee. Premier League clubs’ gross spending this summer is £630m, beating the previous record of £500m set in 2008.’
Alex Thorpe, consultant in the Sports Business Group, added: ‘This is the first year that Premier League clubs will benefit financially from the league’s new broadcast deals; each club benefitting from a share of the extra £600m of revenues in 2013/14 alone. Testament to the impact this is having is in the scale of Premier League gross spending, as well as the gulf in net spending between the Premier League and other European leagues.’
‘Whereas many clubs around Europe have been reliant on selling players in order to spend, the financial advantages Premier League clubs enjoy has enabled net spending of £400m across the league. Many clubs, including new entrants to the league, have successfully competed in the European transfer market to attract high profile foreign talent.’
Jones added: ‘While Premier League clubs are in a stronger position to afford increased transfer and player costs than ever before, the key challenge remains cost control. With regulations at both a league and continental level encouraging clubs to balance their costs with revenue, we hope that while these revenue increases allow the league to attract top players, they will also result in a more profitable picture across the league in the years to come.’
Champions League participation proved its worth as four Premier League clubs competing in this year’s competition – Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United – had a combined gross transfer spend of £230m this summer transfer window, representing 37% of the aggregate gross transfer spend by Premier League clubs.
However, it was Bale’s old club Tottenham who spent biggest, investing nearly £105m on seven new players.
Gross transfer fees to overseas clubs were around £490m, over 60% up on the level seen in summer 2012. This represented 78% of aggregate gross transfer spend by Premier League clubs, as compared with 61% in summer 2012.
Football also proved its spending ability across the continent, with gross spending by clubs across all of the ‘big five’ top divisions of Europe up compared on last year.
Premier League clubs’ net transfer spend, being the net amount that flows to overseas clubs (£370m) and Football League clubs (£30m), was also a new record of £400m, beating the previous record level of £250m set in summer 2012.
Since the introduction of the transfer window system, gross player transfer spending has exceeded £5.3bn, with 80% of this being spent in summer transfer windows.
