Another week in the Premier League, another wedge spent.
No sooner had West Ham bought Nayef Aguerd in a £30 million deal with Rennes than Fabio Vieira’s £34 million move from Porto to Arsenal was signed off. Lower down the scale, we’ve had Nottingham Forest landing Taiwo Awoniyi of Union Berlin for £17.5 million, Nick Pope’s £11 million switch to Newcastle from relegated Burnley, Southampton’s £8.6 million deal for Bochum centre-back Armel Bella-Kotchap and Brighton paying £6 million for Simon Adingra of Nordsjaelland.
Those six transfers are worth in excess of £107 million and the latest in a window that has already seen Premier League clubs commit more than £413 million in the first phase of summer recruitment.
There is some way to go to call this the biggest transfer window for English football’s top division. The summer of 2017 continues to hold that distinction after £1.43 billion was spent inside 10 wild weeks, but the expectation is for that figure to be surpassed if the opening month of this window is a guide.
Welcome to a new age of prosperity in the Premier League. The shadows cast onto balance sheets by COVID-19 have finally dispersed, and from next season the value of central payments made to the 20 clubs will never have been more lucrative. A boom in overseas TV rights, with a new cycle beginning in August, brings additional revenue.
There is restored confidence in the market and plenty of clubs have wasted no time with their recruitment — agents have spoken of June being the busiest they have known it.
Liverpool, whose 2021-22 title challenge fell at the last, have spent in the region of £100 million to sign Darwin Nunez, Calvin Ramsay and Fabio Carvalho. Back-to-back champions Manchester City, too, were quick out of the blocks to wrap up a £51-million move to sign Borussia Dortmund’s Erling Haaland.
Nunez has moved to Liverpool for a fee that could reach £85 million (Photo: Nick Taylor/Liverpool FC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
Those statement signings might have been expected, but it is others, such as Leeds United and Aston Villa, who underline what a place in next season’s Premier League brings. Both were able to spend in the region of £45 million apiece before the summer solstice.
If the combined £413 million outlay no longer seems a lot in a world of dizzying numbers, it is worth noting that eight of the Premier League’s clubs are yet to even make their first moves. Manchester United and Chelsea are in need of expensive overhauls and rivals, such as Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, still have plenty to do. The money will keep on changing hands, in all probability like never before.
“Everyone is free of COVID again and, from a football club perspective, there’s security, safe in the knowledge that this thing won’t stop us from having crowds in again,” a head of player recruitment at one Premier League club told The Athletic before the Awoniyi deal was announced on Saturday morning.
“There’s a lot of trust in the process, which means a lot of clubs have begun to loosen the purse strings after tightening them for two years.
“Plus, this is one of the most competitive Premier League seasons for a good few years. There are some very strong clubs, including those who have come up. There are clubs who have been there before who want to show they’ve learned lessons and Nottingham Forest, they’re going to spend big money. There’s not a Norwich City now, who’ll come up and not spend.
“Everyone knows they need to be competitive and do that they need to spend money.”
The landscape was different 12 months ago.
Only a handful of significant deals got completed before the European Championship began on June 11 and though Manchester City and Chelsea spent close to £200 million to sign Jack Grealish and Romelu Lukaku, that summer ended with £1.14 billion spent in total. An enormous sum, but also the lowest in a summer window since 2015.
Grealish joined City a year ago for £100 million (Photo: Matt McNulty – Manchester City/Manchester City FC via Getty Images)
A full season of capacity crowds (an aggregate figure of more than 15 million fans) has ironed out the frowns in financial departments and encouraged clubs to strengthen free of financial uncertainty.
“Football has got a very short memory, so COVID is now effectively completely forgotten about,” says Kieran Maguire, the football finance expert and lecturer at the University of Liverpool.
“While the domestic TV deal isn’t worth any more next season, some of the overseas TV deals are looking fantastic. Clubs now have an even bigger incentive to spend.
“The increased money you get from qualifying for the Champions League incentivises the big six to spend more and they’re also looking over their shoulders at clubs like Newcastle.
“The cost of getting relegated is now higher than ever, so the bottom tier clubs are now spending more money because they want to reduce the risk of relegation. Everyone has got an incentive to overspend and that is materialising.”
Revenues will reach all-time highs in 2022-23 as the latest three-year cycle of TV rights brings additional income from the lucrative overseas pot. A new Scandinavian deal with Nordic Entertainment is worth double the last deal at £335 million a season, while NBC’s extension to the American rights package is worth a similar annual figure.
This new season will be the first time overseas TV revenues have eclipsed the domestic market. Combined they are worth an estimated £10.5 billion over the next three years — a rise of 16 per cent.
“Our international and domestic broadcast revenues over the next cycle will give stability and certainty to the game as a whole, which is particularly important as football recovers from COVID-19 losses,” said chief executive Richard Masters last November.
It, inevitably, means greater financial muscle. The rise in overseas broadcast revenues will be distributed through merit payments at the end of the season and it is estimated the eventual title winners could be earn an additional £25 million. TV revenues will never have been higher than in the 2022-25 cycle. And clubs can plan accordingly this summer.
“It’s going to be a bumper year,” Maguire says. “That’s why Sir Alan Sugar’s comment about prune juice will be fully in operation.”
As Sugar put it in 2015, in the wake of the Premier League bagging another enormous TV deal, “It goes in one end and out the other.”
A subplot to the spending so far has been where it has gone. There have been a handful of moves between Premier League clubs, such as Yves Bissouma joining Tottenham from Brighton & Hove Albion and Gavin Bazunu flying the Manchester City nest to sign for Southampton, but the majority of the early money has gone to the continent.
The transfers of Nunez, Haaland, Aguerd, Vieira, Diego Carlos and Philippe Coutinho have combined to ensure the bulk of deals have been with overseas clubs. In the region of £373 million has left the English market, roughly half of the total amount spent with overseas clubs in all of last summer’s window.
The foreign markets are not nearly as buoyant as the Premier League. Real Madrid might have spent an initial £70 million to sign Aurelien Tchouameni from French club Monaco, but aside from the £11 million Real Sociedad spent on Mohamed-Ali Cho, there has not been a deal in eight figures from La Liga. Money is tight at Barcelona, Atletico Madrid and Valencia, with an expectation business will have to come late.
Tchouameni is heading for Real Madrid for £70 million (Photo: Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)
Italian clubs have been busier, but two of the biggest moves this summer — Joaquin Correa to Inter Milan and Federico Chiesa to Juventus — were obligated permanent deals on the back of loans. German clubs, too, have spent nothing like their English counterparts. Dortmund have been the most active, boosted primarily by the money banked from selling Haaland.
The Premier League is setting the tone and pace for other divisions. They are predominantly the ones with cash on the hip. There are also fewer rivals in an age where Russian clubs, once among the big spenders, are barred from European competitions due to the conflict with Ukraine.
“You’ve got clubs like Crystal Palace competing with clubs like Milan, financially,” says Maguire. “The bottom half of the Premier League can effectively outbid anyone who is not in the fight for the Champions League. That’s great for the Premier League because that’s the product.”
The rest of Europe attempts to use that to their own financial advantage.
“The Premier League has moved way ahead and that means there’s a premium tax added to any player coming here,” says the Premier League club recruitment boss. “A club knows they’re bargaining with someone that can usually afford that little bit more and are willing to pay that to get the player. Not always but often.
“Typically you’ll find a Premier League club might have five or six players they’re looking at for a certain position and, come the end of the window, there’ll be a lot on that list without a move. That will bring a lot of business late in the window for the rest of Europe.”
If this summer brings record numbers, it comes with a caveat. Or so believes Michael Jarman of the agency Panthera Sports.
“I don’t see too much of a difference this summer,” he says. “If anything, clubs are counting their chips more. From my experiences, clubs are very conscious about how they’re spending their money. You’ll find some of the big Premier League clubs will be very pragmatic and prudent this summer.
“Some Premier League clubs are well ahead of last year, but this summer it’s more a case of clubs knowing what they want and they’re willing to spend to get what they want early.
“It’s almost like a return to normal. If you’re coming out of COVID, clubs are being less cautious. But I’d argue that they’re more cautious than where they were before. The Premier League still has the best product globally in terms of its market appeal. There’s as much, if not more, being spent because of the inflated market, but I’d expect fewer transfers. There’ll probably be more money spent on fewer players by the end of the window. That’s the best way to look at it.”
That view is endorsed by the recruitment head. “I think budgets will be bigger this summer but a club like Aston Villa has changed the climate a little bit,” he says.
“They’ve quickly gone from spending £8 million and £12 million on a player to £25 million and £30 million. They know the difference and know what it gets you.
“Clubs know that if they do spend that bit more money on a secure signing out there, you spend more on one player than the same for two.”
That might not be the best news for clubs in the EFL this summer. It is sure to change in the weeks ahead but there has not yet been a transfer of note between a Premier League and EFL club. Money instead goes to the continent; to clubs in Portugal, Germany, Spain, France and Denmark.
That has made for a sluggish domestic market below the top flight, where money is much less readily available. The wait for crumbs to fall from the table will likely stretch through much of July and into August. Those with parachute payments, like Watford, Burnley, Norwich City, West Bromwich Albion and Sheffield United, are expected to have the biggest budgets.
“You’ve probably got six or seven clubs in the Championship that can spend this summer,” says the recruitment boss. “That will put them at a serious advantage. A lot of clubs just haven’t got anything. They’ll have to sell to spend and work off loans and frees. The loan market will be very active in the Championship. That’s the way it has to be.”
Not in the Premier League, though.
That is where the big financial muscles still bulge.
(Photos: Getty Images)
