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Chelsea FC spent €329mn in the January transfer window, more than all the top-tier clubs in Italy, Spain, France and Germany combined, in a further sign of the English Premier League’s financial power.
A deal for Argentina’s World Cup-winning midfielder Enzo Fernández on deadline day for a fee of about €121mn — a record in English football — capped a busy month for Chelsea’s US private equity owners, who have now spent more than €610mn since buying the club last year.
Led by the Blues, Premier League clubs spent almost €830mn on players and brought in roughly €100mn from sales, leading to a net sum of €730mn by the time the window closed on Tuesday, according to Transfermarkt.
The English top flight’s four main European rivals spent €256mn but ended with a surplus after bringing in €377mn from selling players. Meanwhile, Liga Portugal generated €146mn net transfer income after Benfica’s sale of Fernández to Chelsea.
“Previously the talk was of the top five leagues in Europe, but now clearly there is the English Premier League and then the others,” said Olivier Jarosz, a board member at LTT Sports, an adviser to football clubs on strategy and management.
The Premier League’s financial dominance increasingly gives its teams the pick of European talent, with many clubs across Europe cultivating talented players to generate hefty sums to fund their own costs.
Lucrative international broadcast deals have strengthened the Premier League’s hand in the transfer market — the US rights alone are worth roughly $450mn a year — even after the value of the domestic rights stalled. Its total income from broadcast rights is expected to exceed £10bn in the three seasons ending 2025.
Other big spenders included AFC Bournemouth, the south-coast team acquired for £120mn by US businessman Bill Foley in December. The club agreed to pay €56mn on reinforcements as it fights to rise from 18th position in the league and avoid relegation.
“New ownership generally sparks more activity in the transfer market but clearly this is beyond anything we’ve ever seen,” said Tim Bridge, head of Deloitte’s sports business group.
In January alone, Chelsea spent roughly €330mn on players including Fernández, Ukrainian winger Mykhaylo Mudryk, forward Noni Madueke, and defenders Benoît Badiashile and Malo Gusto, more than any other side.
Despite Chelsea’s transfer expenditure, the club is 10th in the Premier League and risks missing out on qualification for the lucrative Uefa Champions League. Chelsea earned €119.8mn from participating in the competition in 2020/21, boosted by winning the final against Manchester City.
The club was bought last year by a consortium of investors led by US financier Todd Boehly in a £2.5bn deal after Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich was put under sanctions by the UK government and forced to put the club up for sale when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Chelsea’s owners have made use of longer player contracts to soften the impact of the spending on the club’s balance sheet. Under accounting practices, football clubs amortise, or spread, the transfer fee over the length of the player’s contract instead of booking the full cost in one go. This reduces costs incurred in any given season, whereas profit from selling players is booked in one go upfront, thereby helping clubs to comply with financial regulations on how much they can lose.
Andrea Sartori, founder of sports consultancy Ace Advisory, said there were risks to lengthy contracts because of “a longer commitment to pay salary to a player, even in case of a disappointing performance”. He warned that lower annual amortisation also made it harder to record a profit when selling players.
Additional reporting by Dan Clark
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