Record breaking window pushes English football into league of its own
Thursday 1 February 2018
WITH the January football transfer window now closed, Simon Chadwick, Professor of Sports Enterprise at the University of Salford Business School looks back at the deals done in the last month, and says the Premier League may finally be leaving its competitors behind.
Professor Chadwick said: “With each passing multi-million pound transfer window, the Premier League flexes its muscles in front of its neighbours and nearest competitors. Italy and France, PSG aside, have long since fallen behind the English teams (at least in spending terms). Germany and even Spain now appear to be struggling to compete - these are era-defining terms; where observers once identified ‘the big 5’ and then ‘the big three’, European football, thanks to the Premier League, seems to be rapidly heading to ‘the one and only’.
“The big headlines of this window will inevitably focus on Sanchez to Arsenal, van Dijk to Liverpool, Laporte to Manchester City and, as the emblem of football’s current inflationary spike, Coutinho to FC Barcelona. These poster boys of 21st century excess help explain this latest iteration of a ‘record breaking transfer window’, but it is the continuing ripple effect of Neymar, the elaborate maneuverings involved in a transfer deal, the posturing of nation state clubs, and the tale of the haves and have nots, that are the real stories of this particular window.
“Barca clearly still had money in its pocket and a big point to prove following Neymar’s move to Paris Saint Germain (for £198 million) last summer. In spite of the club splashing-out on Borussia Dortmund’s Ousmane Dembele (£105 million) during the last window, there was evidently still money in the club’s coffers. Hence, the Spanish club went back to Liverpool for the big money signing of Coutinho. In turn, the Merseyside club, suddenly awash with cash, made its long-mooted move for Dutch international van Dijk. The trickle-down effect didn’t stop there, as Southampton subsequently moved to sign Dutch international Quincy Promes from Spartak Moscow for £25 million, although this deal fell through at the last minute, and Argentinian Guido Carillo from Monaco for £19.2 million.
“Whilst getting these signings to line-up has been something akin to a house-buying chain, the importance of aligning deals to ensure that clubs can successfully transact their business has been especially evident during this window. The Sanchez/Mkhitaryan swap immediately springs to mind, although the Giroud-Batshuayi-Aubemeyang-Llorente conundrum suggested that getting the right players to right place at the right time can be a major challenge. Indeed, with players and their agents acutely aware of the money flooding into football, allied to the anxieties of clubs making a push either for European places or to avoid relegation, the transfer fees and salary levels carry with them an odour of fear, desperation and, often, frustration.
“And then there is Manchester City. After a big-money summer window, Pep Guardiola continued to spend, on Aymeric Laporte (from Atletico Madrid) and attempted even more on Riyad Mahrez (from Leicester City), a deal which feel through at the last minute. City’s Abu Dhabi owners have never been prone to restraint in the transfer market, but a convergence of factors is fuelling this latest round of acquisitions. A bitter regional feud in the Gulf region has prompted a soft power scuffle, which partly accounts for Neymar’s move to Qatari-owned PSG. Not wanting to be outdone as a soft power force, whilst seeking to ensure at all costs that PSG doesn’t win the Champions League, City’s owners have probably been much more receptive to the club’s calls for even more top-talent. Guardiola and CFG CEO Soriano are both hugely ambitious people, and this is driving the club’s ongoing acquisitive appetite. Though it is telling too that whatever Guardiola seems to want, Guardiola appears to get. When Jesus and Sane get injured, City can draw from financial reserves so great that they can spend £75 million+ on a player without flinching.
“The worrying ongoing ramifications of the top clubs’ transfer market largesse are perhaps most acutely being felt further down the league structure. For clubs in the Championship and beyond, the voracious appetite of top teams for talent means that smaller clubs suffer the consequences of the transfer inflation perpetuated by the likes of Manchester’s City and United, Chelsea and Liverpool – higher fees, higher wages. The problem is that, unlike Premier League teams, smaller clubs don’t have the same revenue generating potential as their richer peers. As such, one wonders how current spending patterns will ultimately affect the financial stability of clubs in the lower leagues. Yet this is not just an internal English domestic issue, it is a competition with the rest of Europe’s top leagues.”
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Sam Wood
0161 295 5361
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