According to a new report from FIFA, Premier League clubs spent £660m on international transfers last year, accounting for 25% of all money spent.
After the Premier League, Italian clubs were the next biggest spenders overseas (£286m), followed by France (£253m), Spain (£192m) and Germany (£144m).
The value in the transfer market must be in Brazil are the World Cup hosts supplied 13% of all international transfers on 2013, as 1,558 players went overseas.
“There are just a very few clubs making very big moves and that is skewing the market, but the rest of the market is very stable,” said Mark Goddard, general manager of Fifa’s Transfer Matching System.
Despite big money signings of Gareth Bale and Neymar, Spanish clubs were the biggest net earners when it came to deals in 2013, earning £150m selling players abroad.
What is remarkable about the transfers is that FIFA reports that £2.2 billion was spent on transfer fees last season. Of that £2.2B, five club, Monaco, Real Madrid, Man City, Spurs & PSG were responsible for approximately £500 million of that whole spend. Which equates to roughly a quarter of all transfer spending.
One of stat that jumped out was the increase in so-called conditional transfers, where part of the fee is fixed and the rest is performance-based. Fees from such transfers leapt 73% to a total of £317 million.
Mark Goddard, general manager of FIFA’s Transfer Matching System (TMS), said the jump in conditional transfers could be significant.
“It is a very interesting trend because the market is becoming more astute, a lot of the transfers are based on either potential performance or past performance, if the players are older,” he told reporters.
“Conditions can be represented by a number of performance factors such as qualification for competitions, relegation, or the players’ performance on an individual level.
“Clubs are hedging their bets, trying to be more sensible in how much money they put into the guaranteed section and into the potential section (of the fee).”