Have Chelsea and Manchester United got value for money for their transfer spending? Do Real Madrid need to spend big to stay top in Europe? And how is Barcelona‘s transfer balance sheet looking?
In its latest statistical breakdown of the game’s finances, the CIES Football Observatory in Switzerland has scoured all the deals over the past decade to find out which clubs have been most active. It’s looked at combined incomings and outgoings (i.e. “transfer volume”) over set periods, as well as the net balance. The data covers this season, as well as combined figures for the last five seasons and 10 seasons.
There are now 169 clubs from 24 countries whose cumulative transfer volume has exceeded the €100 million mark over the last five seasons alone. The clubs from Europe’s biggest leagues lead the way with 14 surpassing €1 billion in spending and one Premier League club in particular skyrocketing well beyond the €2bn threshold.
Having looked over the CIES data tables, here are our main takeaways.
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Chelsea are in a league of their own
Given that they have completed two €100m-plus transfers since January 2023, it’s unsurprising to find Chelsea’s transfer spending way out in front … having paid out €846m more than the second club in the list.
The Blues have shuffled €2.57bn in that time frame with marquee deals for players such as Enzo Fernández, Moisés Caicedo, Romelu Lukaku, Wesley Fofana and Mykhailo Mudryk and Kai Havertz (all of whom are among the club’s top 10 record signings) while also securing relatively big-money departures for the likes of Mason Mount and Havertz.
Chelsea’s closest competition in terms of transfer volume since the start of the 2019-20 campaign are Manchester City (€1.72bn) and Paris Saint-Germain (€1.40bn.) And remember when Barcelona used to be able to spend big on transfers before their financial troubles? They are fourth in the list on €1.33bn.
Man United show that big spending doesn’t guarantee success
When it comes to hemorrhaging money over a sustained period, it would appear that nobody does it better than Premier League clubs with the English top flight providing seven of the 10 worst transfer balances for both the past five and 10 seasons.
It’s Chelsea who again “top” the list over the past five seasons with a negative transfer volume balance of €-782m, narrowly pipping rivals Manchester United (€-773m) into second place. At least the Blues can celebrate winning the Champions League in that time.
However, those two clubs swap positions when the scope is extended to a 10-season overview with United leaping to the fore with an accumulated balance of €-1.34bn thus, dwarfing Chelsea’s respective tally (€-1.04bn).
The Red Devils have parted with such exorbitant amounts in transfer fees over that decade, yet still failed to win a single major title on either the domestic or European front.
At least Chelsea have won the Premier League twice and the Champions League once … Man United have nothing — and we’re not counting the FA Cup or the Europa League.
Big spending with limited results from signing the likes of Harry Maguire, Jadon Sancho, Antony, Ángel Di María, Paul Pogba and Romelu Lukaku have shown a distinctly poor transfer policy at Old Trafford.
The duo are also the only two clubs to have sunk below a negative net transfer spend of more than €-100bn over the decade, with PSG in third place with a running total of €-959m.
