What’s the story?
In yet another monumental record for the Premier League, FIFA’s latest release has stated that the Net Annual spending by the English clubs crossed a whopping one billion US dollars for the first time. The statistics with regards to the spending was released in the report on 2016 international deals by FIFA’s Transfer Matching System (TMS).
The total net spending by English clubs accounted for $1.06 billion (£840 Million) in transfer fees for players from other associations.
In case you didn’t know
The footballing world has experienced a meteoric rise in transfer spending over the last decade with clubs going to great, often exorbitant extent to acquire the players they deem worthy of donning their respective jerseys with English football, in particular, leading the charge. The most notable transfers by English clubs have been the capture of Paul Pogba from Juventus and Leroy Sane from Schalke, fuelling spending by English clubs for players previously associated with other associations.
The heart of the matter
Given the quality of the Premier League, it has become a necessary prerequisite to regularly shell out huge sums of money to bring the best players. While some clubs like Southampton rely on their academy for players to compete at the highest level, most English clubs have taken the easy way out by spending the big bucks on star players from other leagues.
However, in what can be termed as a surprising turn of events, the Chinese Super League has taken the second spot in terms of net annual spending. While the net outlay by Chinese clubs was half the net amount spent by English clubs, it must be noted that the amount, £350 million is still a whopping amount for an up and coming league like theirs. The Chinese Super League spent way more than all the other Asian associations and was double of what the third-placed German Bundesliga spent during the year.
Described as “unprecedented” by FIFA, the Chinese football has been taking the footballing world by storm over the recent times, having snapped up players of the calibre of Carlos Tevez, Axel Witsel, Oscar, Hulk and Ramires.
What next?
Given that the annual spending by English clubs increased 8.7%, while the spending by Chinese football improved by a whopping 250% when compared to the previous year, the spending is only going to improve going forward, given Premier League’s competitiveness as well as Chinese football’s ambition to establish themselves as one of the top footballing Leagues in the world.
There have been several benefactors of the improved spending. However, none has been a larger beneficiary than German football. With the league continuing to churn out quality products year after year, it would be no surprise if the spending improves going forward.
Sportskeeda’s take
The Chinese authorities have termed the money being shelled out by the clubs as “irrational spending”. While in our assessment, we would not like to entirely state it irrational, we do believe that football clubs have to build a sustainable model to remain competitive on the ground as well as on the books.
