Already in the last few days, even before the closing of the summer transfer window, the record of player transfers in the Premier League was broken. Premier League teams spent more than 2 billion euros this summer even before the significant spending that usually occurs on the last day of the window.
Seven English teams have already spent more than €100 million on players, all teams in the Premier League, except Leicester City, have bought a player for €10 million or more; Seven English teams broke their transfer record and of the ten teams in Europe that invested the most in the summer transfer window, only two are not English (Bayern Munich and Barcelona).
More than half of the 100 biggest transfers this summer are from English teams.
Premier League teams spent this summer at least 2.5 times more than any other league. Newcomers to the Premier League, Nottingham Forest, have spent more than any other non-Premier League side – including Barcelona, who have gone on a rampage in the transfer market.
The Premier League teams spent, on average, more than 80 million euros this summer on the purchase of new players. That’s about twice as much as a team in the group stage of the Champions League. And if you discount the spending of small teams in the group stage (Maccabi Haifa, Dinamo Zagreb, Shakhtar Donetsk, Viktoria Pazlan) then the biggest teams on the continent that are not English did not spend, on average, an amount even close to 80 million euros (less than 60 million euros).
The English teams spend these sums on assets in the form of players because over the next three seasons they are guaranteed revenues of more than £10 billion from the sale of broadcast rights alone. The clubs know they will have money and so they are willing to invest. This is simply not the case with the European non-clubs Premier League.
And according to Deloitte, these gaps between the English and the rest of Europe will only grow. In 2020/21, the English teams brought in 5.35 billion euros – almost 2 times more than the closest league (Bundesliga, 2.95 billion euros). Deloitte estimates that the Premier League will bring in at least 7 billion euros this season. It’s kind of like the German league and the Spanish league combined.
Not only does the Premier League have the biggest domestic TV deal in world football, it will also bring in around 44% of all European revenue from broadcasting rights outside their countries. Deloitte claimed this week that “the gap between Europe and the Premier League has never been as significant as it is now and this is largely due to the fact that the Premier League emerged from the corona in a better financial condition than Europe. We are reaching the point of no return as far as Europe is concerned.”
The Champions League, the league that is supposed to be the league with the leading sports brands in the world, brings in around 2.7 billion euros per season and after changing the format and increasing the number of games next season, it will bring in around 20% more. The big hope is that she will be able to increase her income by 40% – but that is mostly hope. This means that teams in the Champions League will receive from next season – a maximum of 150 million euros from bonuses from the Champions League. For comparison, a team relegated from the Premier League this season will receive around 120 million euros.
That is, a team at the bottom of the Premier League will bring in more than any other team in the Champions League.
In UEFA and ECA, the organization of the major European clubs, they tried and are trying to change the ways of distributing the funds so that more money can be transferred from the Champions League to the biggest teams in Europe – but even then, Crystal Palace, for example, can offer a player a bigger contract than any other team In the world except for the really big ones in Spain, Italy and Germany. This is also the reason why we have seen players such as Mateus Nunes, Diego Carlos, Brendan Aaronson, Rasmus Christensen and Manor Solomon give up offers from Champions League teams to join Premier League teams, who promise them a higher salary than the Champions League teams they submitted They have suggestions.
The players’ rationale is clear. It is better, financially, to play for a place in the center of the English table than to compete in the group stage of the Champions League.
The Champions League – a significant revenue engine for European teams – generates money that currently amounts to nice bonuses for English Premier League teams.
“Monza receives 33 million euros from TV and we have to give 3 million euros to Serie B,” said Adriano Galliani, former president of Milan and currently managing the newcomer to Serie A. “A team that is promoted to the English league receives a minimum of 160 million euros. How can you even compete with Nottingham Forest How can this trend in the global economy be stopped? We need a Brexit in football as well. Establish a Super League without the English.”
It is likely that there will be no unification of the non-English top leagues but as long as the current trend continues, this may be the only solution that will allow a Champions League team like Sevilla to invest in themselves like a Premier League relegation candidate like Nottingham Forest.
And what does the money of the Champions League do in the rest of football? This is a dramatic change in the life of a club on the scale of Maccabi Haifa. The guaranteed income of Maccabi Haifa in the 2022/23 season of the Champions League will be 16,777,625 euros (NIS 55,853,185) – and this does not include income from 3 match days or income from bonuses that will be (or not) from a draw or a victory in the group stage. For comparison we will take the latest published reports of Maccabi Haifa – from 2020. The group’s budget at that time was approximately NIS 80 million (NIS 74 million including depreciation of NIS 6 million). The budget has since increased towards NIS 100 million. In other words, UEFA will transfer to Maccabi Haifa more than half of its budget this season and more than 70% of its budget from two years ago.
1 Viewing the gallery
Maccabi Haifa players celebrate the championship
( Photo: Oz Moalem)
The income from the Champions League simply dwarfs to a minimum all the other natural income of a senior team in a minor league. In 2020, Maccabi Haifa brought in about NIS 6.5 million from ticket sales and about NIS 15.7 million from subscription sales. Income from the broadcast rights of the Premier League is usually less than NIS 6 million. Support and grants for less than NIS 2 million. “Other incomes” – from the players’ market, from the owners, from such and other factors stand at Maccabi Haifa at about NIS 20 million every year.
That is, a victory in the group stage can cover about half of the largest “natural” income section because it is worth 2.8 million euros (9.32 million shekels). A draw is worth 900,000 euros (NIS 3 million) – that is, more than any grant that Maccabi Haifa will receive from the Football Association and the league administration.
Two draw results at home can yield Maccabi Haifa an amount equal to all of its revenue from broadcasting rights for an entire season in the Premier League. A victory over a team may yield Maccabi Haifa the same income that ONE ZERO, the digital private bank, promises to the entire Premier League in the next two years (sponsorship agreement for approximately NIS 10 million for two seasons).
What kind of money could that kind of thing do for the Premier League? For competitiveness in the Premier League? If the money is managed correctly and does not disappear as happened to other Israeli teams that reached the Champions League, it is money that can be used for a significant upgrade of the club and its infrastructure. This is something that will give the green club a huge advantage over most of its rivals for years to come.
The numbers show that the Champions League is the top soccer tournament and a factory for creating gaps. A disparity factory that in the end does not help to reduce Europe’s disparities from England.