According to a report published Friday by Fifa, Saudi clubs, which attracted many stars from the football world this summer such as Ballon d’Or Karim Benzema, Riyad Mahrez, Neymar Jr and Sadio Mané, spent 817 million euros between June 1 and September 1.
English clubs have “contributed to spending on the transfer market to the tune of 14%”, calculates Fifa, specifying that “this is the first time that clubs from a confederation other than UEFA have crossed the bar of 10 %”.
On Friday, another report, published by the Deloitte firm, reported expenditure amounting to 894 million euros.
Despite its growing appetite, the Saudi championship remains clearly ahead of the English Premier League, by far the richest in the world, which recruited 1.85 billion euros this summer. Here again, the Deloitte firm indicated a higher figure on Saturday, of 2.74 billion euros.
On the sellers’ side, it is the German clubs which have accumulated the most transfer fees, with 1.11 billion dollars, the first revenues to exceed a billion during a summer transfer window within the same federation.
In total, transfer fees in men’s football set a new record, climbing 47.2% to $7.36 billion compared to the same period in 2022, with “more than 10,000 transfers made” and 696, 6 million dollars in commissions accumulated by agents.
The increase also continues in women’s football, although with incomparable figures: “829 movements including 66 for compensation”, for an amount more than doubled compared to the summer of 2022, with three million dollars paid.
