Liverpool front record spending by English clubs as player power takes hold in transfer window
LONDON: English soccer — and Liverpool, in particular — flexed their financial muscles in unprecedented fashion in a summer transfer window that highlighted the growing imbalance in the European game as well as the effect player power can have in securing a move. Here’s what we learned from the last two months in the transfer market: English dominance The raw facts are that the 20 clubs in the Premier League — fueled by unrivaled spending power because of the competition’s huge domestic and international broadcasting deals — splashed out a record total of $4 billion on players in the summer window. That outlay is more than Europe’s other four top leagues — Spain, Italy, Germany, France — combined. The previous single-window record spend was 2.36 billion pounds (now $3.2 billion) in 2023. More pertinently, the Premier League’s net spend was $1.75 billion, compared to Italy ($100 million) and Spain ($60 million), according to figures by Transfermarkt.