If you thought that transfer fees in football were out of control, the cherry was placed on the cake by the game between Chelsea and Manchester City on the opening weekend of the Premier League 2024/25 season. When you add up the transfer fees commanded by the 22 players that made up the starting elevens of the sides, it amounted to a cool £997 million – factor in the players used off the substitutes’ bench, and the scales tipped over the £1 billion mark.
In an era of supposed ‘financial fair play’, it’s extraordinary that just two teams could combine for a ten-figure sum: particularly in the case of Chelsea, who haven’t won any silverware since 2021. For added context, this assembled throng of 27 footballers are worth more than the annual GDP of countries like Granada and Saint Kitts & Nevis!
£1 Billion Men
The eleven named by Chelsea boss, Enzo Maresca, for his maiden game as Blues boss at Stamford Bridge was worth a combined £550 million, which increased by another £100 million or so when factoring in the substitutes used.
Chelsea Players
- Robert Sanchez – £25m
- Malo Gusto – £26.3m
- Wesley Fofana – £70m
- Levi Colwill – Free
- Marc Cucurella – £55m
- Romeo Lavia – £53m
- Moises Caicedo – £100m
- Enzo Fernandez – £106m
- Christoper Nkunku – £56m
- Cole Palmer – £40m
- Nicholas Jackson – £30m
Chelsea splashed out a British record transfer fee for Enzo Fernandez – £106.8 million – in the January transfer window of 2023….just months after the Argentine lifted the World Cup with his country. The fee paid for Moises Caicedo could eclipse that if the midfielder makes a certain number of appearances for the Blues – his initial £100 million deal would, in that case, rise with add-ons to £115 million; another new British club record.
Five other players that featured for Chelsea against Manchester City were acquired for fees in excess of £50 million: Marc Cucurella, Wesley Fofana, Romeo Lavia, Christopher Nkunku and Petro Neto. Ironically, in a squad worth £659 million, one of Chelsea’s players hasn’t commanded a single transfer fee: Levi Colwill coming through the youth ranks having joined the club as an eight-year-old. As for Manchester City, their starting eleven against Chelsea was worth a combined £438 million; the only substitute they used, Phil Foden, graduating from the club’s academy
Man City Players
- Ederson – £34.9m
- Rico Lewis – Free
- Joško Gvardiol – £77m
- Ruben Dias – £64.5
- Manuel Akanji – £15.1m
- Mateo Kovacic – £25m
- Kevin de Bruyne – £51m
- Bernardo Silva – £43m
- Savinho – £21m
- Jeremy Doku – £55.5m
- Erling Haaland – £51m
Although these sums are eye-watering, it’s also true in the context of modern football that City have signed some bargains over the years: De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva and Haaland for half the cost of an Enzo Fernandez or a Moises Caicedo? That’s just good business…
Smashing Transfer Window Records
With more than a week of the summer transfer window of 2024 still available, Premier League clubs were closing in on yet another eye-popping splurge. Combined, they had spent more than £1.5 billion on new players. Usual suspects like Chelsea (£160 million) and Manchester United (£140 million) led the way, although Aston Villa (£150 million) and Brighton (£145 million) were amongst those not shy of joining the party. In an era of points deductions for financial fair play breaches, it’s an extraordinary amount of spending – and perhaps proof that Premier League clubs aren’t overly fearful at the threat of sanctions being imposed upon them by football’s administrators.
But what is interesting is that clubs still have the January transfer window in order to balance their books, satisfying the requirements of the Profit & Sustainability Rules (PSR) by which they must abide. Don’t be surprised if there’s a trend in the future for mass player sell-offs in the January window to get the spreadsheet looking more amenable. Premier League clubs certainly haven’t been keen to spend much money in the January window in recent years. Indeed, spending in the winter window of the 2023/24 season was incredibly low, in the context of what has gone before, with just £100 million spent by all 20 EPL clubs combined.
It would be fair to say that the points deductions handed out to Everton and Nottingham Forest by then had put the wind up their fellow Premier League clubs, because how about this for a stat: overall spending by EPL clubs topped £2.2 billion – despite just £100 million of that being forked out in January. That explains just how frivolous they were in the summer of 2023, with the spending of the Premier League and the Saudi Pro League in particular contributing to the global transfer record of £6.5 billion for a single window being broken.
But even then, the 2023/24 season did not lead to a record for transfer spending in the Premier League. That actually came during the 2022/23 campaign, when a combined £2.7 billion was forked out during the summer and winter windows combined. There’s no doubt that Premier League clubs are being somewhat more thoughtful in their transfer spending: that £2.1 billion outlay in the summer of 2023 had become £1.5 billion by the summer of 2024, which is a considerable drop off.
There may be a day of reckoning ahead for Manchester City as they continue to be investigated for alleged financial misdemeanours, while you wonder if the likes of Chelsea and Aston Villa – who have both spent a small fortune in recent times – will be able to satisfy PSR requirements, which requires a sense of balance between spending and income. As the Premier League ‘celebrates’ its first £1 billion game, it may well be the last – particularly if EPL chiefs, fearing the introduction of an independent football regulator, decide to go on the offensive and actually sanction those that break financial rules.
