The CIES Football Observatory has revealed in its new monthly report with extremely interesting details of the movement of the big clubs in Europe in the last decade of the transfer market. This summer window that has just closed left some 10.96 billion euros in transfer expenses, being the second highest figure recorded since 2023.
Despite the fact that we are coming from difficult years due to all the changes generated by the coronavirus pandemic, clubs have not stopped spending on reinforcements. The league with the highest expenditure is the Premier League, which represents 28% of the total analysis and exceeds two thirds if we take into account the main five leagues in Europe. Following this same line, the team that has invested the most in Chelsea with a total of 2.78 billion for signings.
The second place is Manchester City. Pep Guardiola's team has spent 1.96 billion, a sum quite far from its rivals in the Premier League. Manchester United rounds out the podium, spending just 10 million less than their neighbours. The LaLiga team that has invested the most is Barcelona, which occupies sixth place on the global list with €1.67 billion. Atlético de Madrid is ninth with €1.24 billion and Real Madrid is 12th with €1.16 billion.
The team that has lost the most is Manchester United
Although they always spend, what is most taken into account at the end of the day is the final balance between what you buy and what you sell. In this case, Manchester United is the team with the worst balance of the last decade with -€1.304 billion. They have not closed with a positive balance in any of the last 10 seasons. Their best year was 2018, where they only lost €52 million.
Behind the team managed by Ten Hag, are Chelsea with -€1.209 billion and Paris Saint-Germain with -€991 million. City falls to sixth place with -703 million euros. Meanwhile, Barcelona falls to ninth place with a loss of -601 million euros, although it remains first on the list in terms of Spain. Atlético and Real Madrid leave the top 20, with losses of less than 300 million euros.
Benfica has been the most successful team
If we talk about the professionals in the transfer market, which are the clubs that have managed to balance their arrivals and departures, we have Benfica as the leader. The Portuguese team has had a balance of 816 million euros in its favour. An extremely high figure compared to the second positioned team, which is Ajax with +473 million euros. Third is RB Salzburg with +401 million euros.
As a curious fact, Lille occupies fourth place and is first among the teams in the five major European leagues with a balance of +391 million euros. Ligue 1 is the only major competition with a positive balance of 230 million euros in its favour. In the case of LaLiga, it has a balance of -790 'kilos', a clear indication that things will have to improve in the future to add and not continue subtracting.