Football | Premier League teams spent USD270m on signings in January

Crystal Palace’s new signing Patrick van Aanholt

The bottom six clubs accounted for almost half of the Premier League’s January transfer spending of 215 million pounds (USD270 million) as they grapple to stay in the world’s richest soccer competition.

The analysis by accountants Deloitte published yesterday highlights the contrast with the offseason transfer window when 60 percent of spending was by teams now in the top six. Spending by Premier League clubs across the two transfer windows soared 32 percent from the previous season to almost 1.4 billion pounds — the highest in world soccer.

The bottom six — Hull, Sunderland, Crystal Palace, Swansea, Leicester and Middlesbrough — are separated by five points and collectively spent 110 million pounds in January. The need to stay in the top division has never been more financially significant for teams. This is the first season of television contracts generating 8.3 billion pounds over three seasons for the league.

“It is clubs in the bottom half of the table who have driven expenditure this January, investing in their squads in an attempt to secure survival,” Dan Jones of Deloitte said. “This is no surprise given clubs’ reliance on the revenues generated from the Premier League’s broadcast deals.”

Despite the influx of broadcast revenue, Deloitte reports Premier League clubs collectively making a profit of 40 million pounds from transfers for the first time in a window, fueled by four deals, including two to China: Oscar (Chelsea to Shanghai SIPG for about 60 million pounds); Dmitri Payet (West Ham to Marseille for 25 million pounds); Memphis Depay (Manchester United to Lyon for up to 25 million euros); and Odion Ighalo (Watford to Changchun Yatai for about 20 million pounds). AP