English Premier League spending tumbles

[Evastar]

Spending by Premier League clubs in the summer transfer window has tumbled 22% from last year, a report says.

The 20 clubs in England's top flight spent a total of £350m this summer, down from £450m last year, business analysts Deloitte said.

Big-spending Manchester City made up 36% of that, splashing out some £126m, though it recouped a reported 15m euros (£12m) of that with a last minute transfer of Robinho to AC Milan.

The transfer window closed at 1800 BST.

"In general clubs are more keen to spend money on wages than on transfers," said Paul Rawnsley, director of the sports business group at Deloitte.

Among the many factors weighing on clubs' spending, Mr Rawnsley noted the financial failure of Portsmouth FC, higher income tax rates on players' big pay packets, and a weaker pound making foreign transfers more expensive.

This summer had also seen a number of high-profile players move on free transfers, including Joe Cole from Chelsea to Liverpool and William Gallas from Arsenal to north London rivals Tottenham.

Man City's summer spree

* James Milner £26m
* David Silva £24m
* Mario Balotelli £24m
* Yaya Toure £24m
* Aleksandar Kolarov £16m
* Jerome Boateng £10m

This season also saw the introduction of new rules stating that clubs must register a squad of a maximum of 25 players, including eight "home-grown" players.

A home-grown player must have been registered domestically for at least three years before his 21st birthday, so for example Arsenal's Cesc Fabregas would count as home-grown.

In addition, squads can be supplemented by an unlimited number of players under the age of 21.

The rules were designed to encourage investment in young English or Welsh players, but this does not appear to have been the case, according to the report.

BBC News - English Premier League spending tumbles

 

[NL7]

fooookin milner costing more than david silva! that milner another overrated english player and city the idiots have got absolutely rinsed by villa for him! look at van der vaart for £8m... what an absolute bargain.. wtf didnt fergie go for him at that price!?

 

[dilin1984]

Despite spending £126m City is not going to have a good season i think. Mainly because they got front players in the lights of Adebayor, tevez, silva, johnson, balotelli and Santa cruz. For the moment lets leave santa cruz he won't play this season for sure unless 2 of the other above players will get hurt. So in that 5 players who all will play in the starting 11 , who will sit on bench for one full season, so they are going to have a big problem inside their dressing room regarding this, it would have been good if mancini spent some money on a good central defender. Even in the midfiled it likely to go with Yaya toure , millner and de jong so there also barry will sit out. Millner's transfer was not needed for them as Viera, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Kelvin Etuhu, Michael Johnson are there. In total City is now in a big mess up. If mancini can control the emotions of the players regarding playing football at every weekend then only City will reach at the top .

Anyway few good signings were there : Benayoun , Hleb , Vander vat , poulsen .

I think this year also it will be a 2 horse race between Blues and Red devil's

 

[imranrasool]

fooookin milner costing more than david silva! that milner another overrated english player and city the idiots have got absolutely rinsed by villa for him! look at van der vaart for £8m... what an absolute bargain.. wtf didnt fergie go for him at that price!?

Exactly my thoughts mate, Van Der Vaart would have been a brilliant signing in my opinion especially at that money.

Did we not pay something similar for Bebe? And I'm sure there was a come and get me plea from Van der Vaart to SAF a couple of weeks ago.

Am looking forward to seeing him in the Spurs side, as he could really give them that bit extra this year.