Top five help inflate spending to record level

Research by the Deloitte group shows that Premier League clubs spent £485m this summer – an increase of 33 per cent on last year’s spending – and £225m in January.

Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and champions Manchester United have all spent over £50m on signing players this summer alone as football continues to defy the economic difficulties experienced by the rest of the country.

The previous record spending level was £675m in 2008, when Sheik Mansour’s takeover of Manchester City heralded a new era of spending at the club which has continued.

Analysts put the record down to increased expectations among top clubs and predict that the high spending will continue.

“Apart from last year, summer spending has held up around this £400m-£500m mark. That seems to be the norm for the last four or five years and there is no compelling reason to think it’s going to drop,” said Dan Jones, partner in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte.

“Football is not immune to what is going on in the wider economy but it is pretty resistant to it. Football’s revenues are continuing to increase and I don’t think it will fall.

“This is a record calendar year because if you look at the top five clubs they have all had reason to spend.

“There is a new-ish manager at Liverpool, a new manager at Chelsea, ambitious owners at Manchester City, a team looking to refresh in Manchester United after a lot of retirements, and Arsenal needed to spend too.”

Deloitte found that this summer Premier League clubs have spent around £165m on English players – a huge increase on the £50m spent last summer.

The Premier League’s home-grown player rules mean managers are more inclined to buy British, according to Jones.

He said: “The percentage of transfer money going overseas is the lowest we’ve seen, apart from 2009. “The rules on signing homegrown players, as defined by the league, effectively mean you have a larger squad if you buy British so that’s why we have seen the likes of Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson and Ashley Young move.”

Some of the biggest moves came as loan deals – Yossi Benayoun to Arsenal, Emmanuel Adebayor to Tottenham and Joe Cole to French side Lille.

Jones thinks there will be more loan deals completed in the next few years as clubs look to balance their books to comply with UEFA’s financial fair play rules.