English clubs spent the winter transfer campaign in economy mode

The next winter transfer campaign in world football turned out to be surprisingly quiet. Clubs in the top five leagues spent around €600 million on players during the period, half as much as during last year’s January window. The reason for the drop in expenses was the sharp decline in the activity of English clubs. Apparently, there are many reasons for this – these include the colossal investments in newcomers made in 2023, and the sudden desire of the English Premier League (EPL) to strictly control the compliance of its members with financial regulations and strictly punish for violations.

The winter transfer window closed in the leading European football leagues on the night of Thursday to Friday. And the main result of this campaign is literally striking. Compared to last year, it turned out to be surprisingly quiet – there were no blockbuster transitions and, most importantly, there was no waterfall of investments in newcomers. In January 2023, clubs in the top five leagues – English, Spanish, German, Italian and French – spent on them, according to data Transfermarkt, a total of €1.108 billion, in January 2024 – almost half as much, €590 million. And why this drop happened is not difficult to determine. In fact, it’s just because of one country.

The main driver of the transfer market for many years has been the English Premier League. And if within this window the rest of the Big Five championships maintained their usual level of activity, then the expenses of the Premier League actually fell into the abyss.

In terms of British currency, they amounted, according to the BBC and The Guardian, exactly £100 million (€118 million). This is much less than French (€191 million) and even Brazilian (€147 million) expenses, although Brazil is actually a selling country in football. And the Russian Premier League, with its opportunities shrunk due to international sanctions, which nevertheless invested €61 million in newcomers over the past month, has the right not to feel, as usual, as a “dwarf” compared to the Premier League.

And another £100 million is less than the single most expensive transfer of January 2023: we are talking about Chelsea’s purchase from Benfica of one of the heroes of the Qatar World Cup, Argentine Enzo Fernandez. Now the most expensive transfer in England turned out to be the transfer of Romanian defender Radu Dragushin from Genoa to Tottenham for £25 million. A year ago, against the backdrop of much more high-profile transactions, he would simply have been lost.

There are many versions as to why such a drop occurred. But experts interviewed by British media resources are confident that a whole range of reasons must be considered.

One of the most obvious reasons is that, as Deloitte senior partner Tim Bridge put it to the BBC, a “smarter approach” to spending has been driven by the huge investments made by Premier League clubs in 2023.

Over the course of two transfer windows, they slightly exceeded the cosmic mark of €3 billion. Thanks to this, the teams had well-equipped squads and solved most of the personnel problems for some time. Moreover, before the winter transfer window, only two coaching resignations were recorded in the English Championship. This confirms that, in general, the club management is satisfied with the development of events, which, in turn, eliminates the desire to make significant adjustments to the application. Moreover, as I noted in an interview The Guardian well-known football market analyst Kieran Maguire, most acquisitions in 2023 were made with borrowed funds. And this is also a reason to think about saving for a while, since debts must be repaid.

But there is one more reason, which all nuclear submarine experts point to as the key one. This is the league’s sudden desire to strictly monitor compliance with its financial regulations (called the “Profitability and Sustainability Rules” – PSR) and strictly punish those who violate them. In November, the Premier League already deducted ten points from Everton for disregarding the provisions of the PSR (which, in particular, suggests that the club’s total losses over a three-year period cannot exceed £105 million). She recently brought new charges against him. The same fate befell Nottingham, which is also likely to face some unpleasant consequences towards the end of the season. Well, we must not forget that in 2023 the Premier League initiated an investigation, also based on financial abuse, against the English flagship Manchester City. So far, he seems to be getting out of it, but various sources have no doubt that Manchester residents may still experience difficulties in relations with regulatory authorities.

Alexey Dospehov