Record Premier League spend but will it guarantee trophies?
Premier League football clubs have spent more cash than ever on new players, but does money buy success? Channel 4 News finds other European nations are getting a bigger bang for their buck.
Austerity is not a familiar word in English football. 2011 was a record year for Barclays Premier League transfer spending, with £710m spent in total.
Latest research by the Deloitte group shows that top flight clubs splashed out £485m before the summer transfer window closed – an increase of 33 per cent on last year.
Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United each spent more than £50m as football continued to defy the economic difficulties experienced in other industries.
The largest transfer in the summer window was the £38m that Manchester City splurged on Argentina striker Sergio Aguero from Atletico Madrid, making him the second most expensive player in Premier League history.
He overtook the £35m Liverpool wired to Newcastle for striker Andy Carroll in January as the Merseysider’s sought to replace Fernando Torres who had signed for Chelsea for £50m just hours earlier, in what remains the league’s most expensive transfer to date.
Derlen Chiu runs the Footy Finance blog which looks at the “business behind the beautiful game”.
He told Channel 4 News that football does suffer when the markets slump but the “effects are not immediately apparent”.
He points out that overall transfer expenditure took a dip during the 2009/10 season, at the height of the global financial crisis.
And he explained: “It is not a coincidence that the leagues having trouble paying players (Serie A, La Liga) are in countries which are currently experiencing financial crises.
“The relative health of Premier League clubs has allowed them to resume spending at pre-crisis levels, although whether this is a good or bad thing certainly depends where you sit in the ground.”
But does the money translate into silverware? The spending habits of the last five years (see graphic) reveal an interesting picture.
While English clubs have kept spending more than fellow major footballing nations, success at European level has been scarce.
Manchester United won the Champions League in 2008 but since then Spain, Italy and Portugal have dominated despited spending less on new players.
Efforts have been made in some countries, including Spain, to end the days of football megadeals.
But Chiu says we have not seen the last of the big spenders.
“Certainly 80m mega-transfers are not going to be coming back anytime soon, Financial Fair Play and the efforts of various FAs have seen to that,” he said.
“But owners can still spend as much as they are able on grounds and youth development.
“And what about rich clubs who do not yet participate in Uefa competitions? You only need to look at Samuel Eto’o’s record breaking contract with Anzhi Makhachkala for an answer.”