NEUCHATEL: Manchester City, with an estimated €1.08bn invested to sign their current players – add-ons included – remains at the top of the rankings of the big-5 league teams’ transfer spending.

However the latest report from the CIES Football Observatory shows that, compared with the start of last season, the gap with Manchester United slipped by almost €140m – from €192m to €58m.

The Manchester teams are the only ones to have spent over a billion euro in transfer indemnities to make up their current squads. Paris Saint-Germain complete the podium (€957m, + €69m with respect to the previous season), followed by Real Madrid (€787m + €79m) and Chelsea (€78m + €17m).

Three further English Premier League teams (Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham), as well as Barcelona and Juventus, also paid more than €500m in transfer fees to assemble their squads.

Per league, the average transfer expenditure per team to sign current squad members vary between €410 million for the English Premier League (with a minimum of about €87m for Norwich City) and €131m for both the French Ligue 1 (with a minimum for Clermont Foot) and the German Bundesliga (with a minimum for Bochum). The data for 2020/21 are available here.

About the CIES Football Observatory

The CIES Football Observatory is a research group within the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES). Created in 2005 by Dr. Raffaele Poli and Dr. Loïc Ravenel, the CIES Football Observatory currently comprises a staff of four full-time permanent researchers who specialise in the statistical analysis of football. Click here for more information.

About the CIES

The International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES) is an independent study centre located in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. It was created in 1995 as a joint venture between the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the University of Neuchâtel, the City and State of Neuchatel. Click here for more information. Click here for more information.

CIES – Centre International d’Étude du Sport
Avenue DuPeyrou 1, 2000 Neuchâtel
Switzerland
Phone +41 32 718 39 00 – Fax +41 32 718 39 01
Email: football.observatory@cies.ch