Issue number 346 of the Weekly Post presents the annual CIES Football Observatory analysis on big-5 league teams’ transfer fee spending to assemble their squads.
With an estimated €1.08 billion invested to sign their current players (possible add-ons included), Manchester City remains at the top of the rankings.
However, with respect to the start of the 2020/21 season, the gap with Manchester United went down by almost €140 million: from €192M to just about €58M.
The Manchester teams are the only ones to have spent over a billion euro in transfer indemnities to make up their current squads.
Paris St-Germain complete the podium (€957M, + €69M with respect to the previous season), followed by Real Madrid (€787M, + €79M) and Chelsea (€780M, + €17M).
Three further English Premier League teams (Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham), as well as Barcelona and Juventus, also paid more than €500 M in transfer fees to assemble their squads.
Per league, the average transfer expenditure per team to sign current squad members vary between €410 million for the English Premier League (with a minimum of about €87M for Norwich City) and €131M for both the French Ligue 1 (with a minimum for Clermont Foot) and the German Bundesliga (with a minimum for Bochum).
The data for 2020/21 are available here.
About the CIES Football Observatory
The CIES Football Observatory is a research group within the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES). Created in 2005 by Dr. Raffaele Poli and Dr. Loïc Ravenel, the CIES Football Observatory currently comprises a staff of four full-time permanent researchers who specialise in the statistical analysis of football. Click here for more information.
About the CIES
The International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES) is an independent study centre located in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. It was created in 1995 as a joint venture between the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the University of Neuchâtel, the City and State of Neuchatel. Click here for more information. Click here for more information.
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