The Premier League spending table

Lyndon Lloyd , 30 August, 14comments | Jump to most recent

The BBC have compiled a league table to spending by the Premier League's clubs since the introduction of the transfer window in 2003.

Based on data from Deloitte, the table shows that England's top-flight clubs have spent £4.4bn on players over the past nine years.

Everton's total places them in 10th — which is lower than their average League finish of 8th — but, of course, unlike the table at TransferLeague.co.uk, it doesn't take into account the club's revenue from incoming sales, figures that show the Blues' net spend over the decade to be just a couple of million pounds.

By way of contrast, the biggest spenders, Chelsea, have racked up almost six times as much at £673; Manchester City in second have splashed £572m (most of it, of course, over the past five years) and Liverpool in third have spent almost four times as much as Everton at £414m.

Thanks to Trevor Powell

Quotes or other material sourced from BBC Sport

Reader Comments (14)

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Sur Jo
1 Posted 30/08/2012 at 18:49:40

Amazing.

Michael Ward
2 Posted 30/08/2012 at 18:54:05

The table doesn't give the whole picture how many of those teams have been in the premier league for all of the last 10 years. Net per season in premier league would be interesting also just per season on average, qpr have spent a fortune

Nick Entwistle
3 Posted 30/08/2012 at 18:56:30

Something always annoyed me about the FSW and that was his constant claims he didn't have THAT much money to spend. 3rd!

John Ford
4 Posted 30/08/2012 at 18:59:15

Pretty much all the regular premier teams have spent more than us, and in many cases massively so. Average annual net spend would show an even bigger gap.

Moyes gets more bang for his buck than anyone, in terms of league points. The table is also quite depressing as it highlights the apparent requirementto pay for success.

Fuck em all, COYB

Scott Goin
5 Posted 30/08/2012 at 19:04:24

What Michael Ward said. I think the majority of teams on that list have spent time outside of the Premier League (including several who've spent more than Everton).

Paul Dewhurst
6 Posted 30/08/2012 at 19:02:01

Michael 348 - the only teams who have been in the prem the whole time since 2003 is the top 7 spenders us and Fulham (fair play Fulham) The 2 north east clubs have had time out of the prem and look at what they have spent - net spend would be good to see but it would probably just piss us off more

Paul Foster
7 Posted 30/08/2012 at 19:17:19

TransferLeague.co.uk have been publishing these figures for years. In terms of net average spent per club per season since 2003, we are way down in 17th. Arsenal, even more impressively, are in 20th:

http://transferleague.co.uk/league-tables/transfer-league-table-2003-to-date.html

Michael Ward
8 Posted 30/08/2012 at 19:20:23

The Arsenal stat defintely doesn't tell the whole story because I would imagine that the vast majority of their transfer income has been in the last 3-4 seasons when they have sold their players. I still think they spent a lot to be able to get in that position in the first place

Roberto Birquet
9 Posted 30/08/2012 at 20:54:06

It's a nonsense if it does not give revenues.

On that basis, if you spend £15 million a year, but only after you sell players worth £25 million a year, then you are more spendthift than a club that spends £14 million, without ever selling.

The accountants would not like that.

Ian Bennett
10 Posted 30/08/2012 at 21:01:56

Carroll out on loan. What a waste of £35m. £35m — that is a huge wedge of dough!

Mike Allison
11 Posted 30/08/2012 at 22:00:02

Paul Foster's link is far more informative than the BBC one, have a look there.

Matt Traynor
12 Posted 30/08/2012 at 22:46:09

The other link may contain more info, but a lot of it seems to be incorrect.

Jason Chew
13 Posted 31/08/2012 at 01:28:13

To be fair to the clubs who did not spend all of the last 10 seasons in the top-flight, we all know most of their best players leave once the club is relegated, and the clubs need to slash their wage bill to stay afloat, hence the need for massive spends when they come back up, to replace those who have gone. Inflation also plays a part, so a club that played 2 or 3 seasons in the top flight last year would likely have spent more than a club which played for the same number of seasons in the earlier part of the decade.

Mike Hughes
14 Posted 31/08/2012 at 12:36:59

Roberto #379 - fair point about revenues but this table at least illustrates business savvy in the transfer market.

Some mind-blowing comparisons that really put things into perspective.
Bottom line - David Moyes has done wonders with relatively little resources. He's also unearthed some gems (Cahill, Jelavic) and sold on at a profit (Lescott, Beckford, Rodwell). OK, we'll have to overlook one or two minor issues (Danish central defenders, Dutch wingers and James Beattie spring to mind).

I'd particularly like to congratulate Newcastle for the Andy Carroll deal (snigger).
Is this the crime of the century so far?

Thankfully, it also looks like the RS have also made a £4m loss on Charlie Adam with the added bonus that he isn't coming here. Also, Henderson and Downing are probably worth nearly thirty quid between them now.

I take pride in the way Everton FC runs its business (though like everyone else, I wish we didn't have to work this way out of necessity).

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