Premier League Could Hit £1bn Spend On Players

The biggest story on deadline day was a deal that did not happen.

Manchester United and Real Madrid’s failure to organise a transfer in a window offered a modern twist to a familiar tale of brinkmanship, with David De Gea’s return to Spain foundering via FIFA’s online transfer matching system, rather than a malfunctioning fax machine.

But one deal that foundered should not obscure the wider trend. English clubs have once again spent a record sum on players this summer and, once the January sales are over, could be heading for the first £1bn season.

If it doesn’t happen this year it won’t be long coming, as Premier League clubs enjoy the fruits of record broadcast income, and are charged a hefty premium by selling clubs across Europe and beyond as a result.

Manchester United’s £36m signing of French teenager Antony Martial (which remarkably could rise to £58.8m in add-ons) took this summer’s spending to almost £860m, a figure likely to rise when the final accounting is done, and put English football in sight of its first £1bn season.

That’s £15m more than Deloitte’s figure for last summer. They put the value of last January’s spending at £130m, taking the 2014-15 season total to £965m.

The Martial deal tells us much about the market in which English clubs are shopping. In France it has been greeted with shock.

The 19 year-old forward is regarded as a good prospect but there was astonishment that Monaco persuaded United to make him not just the most expensive teenager ever, but perhaps more costly than the great Zinedine Zidane when bonuses are added.

(Circumstances may have pushed the price up. According to one report, Monaco put £15m on the price when United enquired, knowing that Wayne Rooney is the only established goal scorer left at Old Trafford.)

Specifics aside, there is no question that when English clubs go shopping these days, everyone sees them coming. They are paying a huge price, literally, for their success in generating broadcast income.

Currently the 20 clubs share £1.3bn a year, but that will rise to £2.5bn or more the season after next, when the new deal (worth £5bn domestically alone) begins.

That deal will see all 20 Premier League clubs join Europe’s big four - Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Qatar-backed Paris St-Germain – in the cabal of clubs who will pay a premium on every player they sign.

For proof, look no further than the £52m Wolfsburg were able to extract from Manchester City for the talented but far-from-iconic Kevin De Bruyne.

Bundesliga clubs have until recently been protected from Premier League raids by their own financial success, but no more, though in De Bruyne’s case they got exceptional value.

There is an obvious upside to this spending power. It means that clubs from the Premier League’s rump can afford to buy Champions League quality stock. Stoke City’s signing of Xherdan Shaqiri (from Internazionale) and Yohan Cabaye’s move from PSG to Crystal Palace are the best recent examples.

It has also strengthened the hand of club owners when faced with hostile bids from their domestic rivals. Everton have managed to resist Chelsea’s overtures for John Stones all summer because only a mind-boggling sum – more than the £35m offered - makes a difference.

Likewise Jeremy Peace at West Brom, whose patience has been tested by Daniel Levy’s bids for Saido Berhino (Tottenham fans know how he feels) but not broken. At the Hawthorns, the offer of £23m for a prize asset no longer transforms the balance sheet.

Ultimately that should make the Premier League more competitive. Whether it makes it any better at producing young English players is a different matter. That, on current evidence, is a knack the league cannot yet buy.