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North London: the home of transfers on credit

Back in the dim and distant days when I was young we used to call 'hire purchase' to obtain goods like televisions 'the never never'.

Both North London clubs, Arsenal and Tottenham, have invested heavily in their squads in an attempt to reach the top four and maybe even challenge for the title. In fact, both clubs had their highest ever gross spend this summer, breaking through the £200m barrier for the first time (with the January window still to come).

Arsenal spent £204m this summer to bring in Declan Rice from West Ham, Kai Havertz from Chelsea and the unfortunate Jurrien Timber from Ajax, while only making £59m from player sales, mainly Folarin Balogun to Monaco and Granit Xhaka to Bayer Leverkusen.

The famously tight-fisted Daniel Levy opened up his cheque book to splash out £216m on new players, the second highest in the Premier League this summer.

In the last five years, Arsenal and Tottenham have had the third highest and fifth highest gross spends in the Premier League, which raises the question of how they have managed to do this, given that their revenue is so much lower than the top four clubs.

Part of the answer is that they have increasingly bought players on credit, so their transfer debt has shot up. As at June 2022 Tottenham owed £252m, while Arsenal were on the hook for £188m.

This is not great, but Arsenal and Spurs are caught between a rock and a hard place, as they would struggle to match their rivals if they do not spend similar sums – and they would then likely miss out on the lucrative Champions League.


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