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Premier League clubs use their chequebooks

The financial dominance of the Premier League was underscored by the latest Global Transfer Report from Fifa, as the latest window to sign new players slams shut on Monday. English clubs spent $3.82bn in the international transfer market last year, more than the $3.43bn total for the next three leading spenders (Germany, Italy and France) combined.

The figure for English teams, up from $1.88bn in 2024, accounted for about 30 per cent of the record $13.08bn spent on international transfer fees across the men’s game in 2025. Spending on international transfers also hit a record high last year in women’s football.

The two biggest cross-border deals both involved Premier League holders Liverpool, who brought in midfielder Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen and Eintracht Frankfurt forward Hugo Ekitike.

The report does not include domestic deals, such as the British-record £125mn the Anfield club spent on striker Alexander Isak, signed from Premier League side Newcastle United.

That England’s leading clubs have bigger chequebooks than their continental rivals is not new. But the Fifa report also showed that it is not just Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea that are spending big, with the likes of Sunderland, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Nottingham Forest outspending European powerhouses such as Real Madrid and AC Milan in the international transfer market.

This dominance was reflected in the final standings for the Uefa Champions League group phase that was finalised this week. England claimed five of the top eight spots to advance into the last 16, while last year’s finalists Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan, as well as 2023-24 winners Real Madrid, all have to navigate a potentially tricky play off match or face elimination.

The Premier League will introduce new financial rules from next season that will link spending to revenues, moving English football closer to the model used by Uefa. But so long as the Premier League remains the world’s most lucrative domestic football competition, its clubs will also be able to keep spending.

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