Thanks to Premier League & Saudi Arabia: 2019 spending record broken

LaLiga & Serie A lag behind

7.568 billion euros – that was the international spending record for all football clubs from summer 2019. This record is history two days before Deadline Day 2023, even though LaLiga and Serie A are miles away from their transfer spending from the summer before Covid. The Premier League and the Saudi Pro League step into the breach: in the night from August 29 to 30, transfer investments for 1,617 players reached 7.631 billion euros.

In the 2019 summer transfer window, transfers were paid for 1,969 footballers and many leagues set new spending records that have lasted to this day: LaLiga invested 1.38 billion, Serie A 1.23 billion, the Bundesliga 762 million and Ligue 1 713 million euros. At that time, the Premier League clubs paid 1.53 billion euros for newcomers – a few days before the end of the current transfer period, the richest league in the world is currently at 2.43 billion euros.

2023 editions: Al-Hilal, Al-Ahli & Al-Nassr way ahead of FC Barcelona & Juventus

If you want to get an accurate snapshot of the financial balance of power in football, it helps to take a look at the top 10 clubs most willing to invest: five play in the Premier League, three in Saudi Arabia, plus Paris Saint-Germain under Qatari management and FC Bayern. In 2019, hardly any expert would have thought that Al-Hilal, Al-Ahli and Al-Nassr would soon be found miles ahead of FC Barcelona and Juventus Turin and between Manchester City and Chelsea in the spending statistics.

While the English are spending more every year thanks to huge TV contracts, many Italian clubs and almost the entire LaLiga are subject to austerity measures. This summer, Spanish first division clubs only bought for 398 million euros – one billion less than in 2019. Contrary to this trend, the first division of Saudi Arabia has established itself as a serious player on the transfer market, since money and financial fair play are not important there. With currently 846 million euros in transfer fees paid, the league, which is subsidized with billions of dollars from the state, is positioning itself as a new heavyweight thanks to less solvent clubs and is responsible for spending in new dimensions.

The financial power of the Saudis becomes even clearer if you compare the current differences between transfer spending and earnings: the clubs from LaLiga (+€125m), Serie A (+€182m), Bundesliga (+127m .€) and Ligue 1 (+€109m) have taken in more than they spent on the transfer market this summer. At the same time, the Saudi Pro League made a loss of 819 million euros. We won’t find out how high the new record in terms of transfer fee will be on September 2nd, the day after Deadline Day in Europe’s top leagues, but only on September 20th – then the transfer window in Saudi Arabia will close.

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