USD 6.5 billion spent in international summer transfer window this year, fails to surpass last season’s spendings

FIFA has released a statement on the recently concluded summer transfer window where a record 11,000 international transfers were registered globally. The clubs across the globe broke the bank to strengthen their squads for the upcoming season. Argentina’s World Cup-winning forward Julian Alvarez’s deal from Manchester City to Atletico Madrid – 75 million euros (USD 83 million) was the biggest transfer deal of the summer in terms of money.

While Kylian Mbappe also made a sensational move to his dream club, Real Madrid, but it was a free transfer after the French forward’s contract expired at PSG after last season. Still, Madrid had to pay Mbappé a signing bonus variously reported as between USD 110 million and USD 165 million.

Meanwhile, spending on transfer fees in international men’s player deals cooled off during the mid-year trading period, according to International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) research published.

FIFA said clubs committed to spend USD 6.46 billion on buying players in cross-border deals during the June-to-September transfer window — down from USD 7.43 billion in the same period a year ago.

However, the transfer window didn’t witness any USD 100 million or plus move as the average transfer fees paid by clubs in Europe, by far the richest market, was USD 3.13 million compared to USD 3.8 million a year ago.

The FIFA study is not a complete guide because it does not count the biggest transfer deal of the European offseason, nor does it include moves by players between two clubs in the same country.

The FIFA study does not include deals involving two clubs in the same country where the player’s registration is not transferred between member federations.

Deals in the top-10 biggest transfer fees not counting toward the FIFA figures include Dominic Solanke from Bournemouth to Tottenham, Pedro Neto from Wolves to Chelsea and Teun Koopmeiners from Atalanta to Juventus.

English clubs were the biggest overall net spenders with an outlay of USD 1.69 billion on international transfers, and USD 1.25 billion recouped. Clubs in England, Italy and Saudi Arabia all had a collective net spending of at least USD 400 million.

Belgian clubs took a net profit of USD 302 million, by receiving USD 412 million from selling players abroad and spending USD 110 million on players from clubs in other countries, according to FIFA. Those deals included Igor Thiago moving from Club Brugge to Brentford and Ernest Nuamah from Molenbeek to its sister club Lyon.

Clubs from Argentina received about $130 million more than they spent, and Brazilian clubs made a collective profit of USD 98 million on international deals, FIFA said.

Of the record 11,000 international transfers processed by FIFA in the past three months, most did not include a fee and nearly 6,300 were free agent players.