A group of six English Premier League teams (Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, and Tottenham) recently caused controversy by agreeing to join the proposed European Super League (ESL).
Premier League $138m Jack Grealish Transfer Shows its Business
As a means of securing a more reliable source of revenue in these unstable times, the continent’s major clubs decided to close business.
Clubs, like any other business, were impacted by the epidemic last year, when it was necessary to play games behind closed doors. The clubs took a financial impact proportional to the size of their stadiums, meaning that the bigger the stadium, the bigger the hit.
If you haven’t been paying attention in the past several weeks, clubs have been busy preparing for the next Premier League season.
Ahead of Friday’s season opener between newly promoted Brentford and Arsenal, the Premier League has seen bumper amounts paid for some of the best players on the planet, led by Manchester City’s eye-watering $138 million deal for English playmaker Jack Grealish.
However, Manchester United has already paid $100 million for Jadon Sancho and reports indicate that Chelsea paid over $130 million for former striker Romelu Lukaku.
Arsenal and Liverpool have strengthened their defences by signing central defenders Ben White (for $69 million) and Ibrahima Konaté (for $48 million). Spurs also spent $65 million to acquire goalkeeper Cristian Romero from Atalanta.
An expert on football finances, Kieran Maguire, says that the current spending levels do not surprise him despite the financial damage from Covid-19, but that he has detected a new trend, sponsored in part by the massive TV deals for those at the top of the footballing ladder.
Last Words
“I believe what we’ve seen is a concentration of spending on very, very high value players, when maybe under normal conditions it would be increasing the quality of the squad,” one analyst said.
“Therefore, we are witnessing very high individual values, despite the fact that the number of signings has really decreased.”
