Spending on international transfer fees nearly tripled in 10 years, FIFA says
In all, $48.5 billion was spent on international transfers over the past decade with the top 30 spending clubs all based in Europe.
The most spent on a player was Paris Saint-Germain’s 222 million euro ($262.45 million) deal to bring Neymar from Barcelona in 2017.
Brazilian players were the most on the move, topping the list with over 15,000 moving between clubs in different countries.
“From 11,890 transfers conducted in 2011 to a peak of 18,079 in 2019, a total of 133,225 international transfers and loans of professional players took place,” FIFA said.
“The transfers involved 66,789 players and 8,264 clubs across 200 FIFA member associations, thus underlining football’s role in the global economy.”
English clubs spent the most in the last decade at $12.4 billion followed by Spain ($6.7 billion), Italy ($5.6 billion), Germany ($4.4 billion) and France ($4 billion).
Player agents’ commissions jumped from $131.1 million in 2011 to $640.5 million in 2019, almost a five-fold increase.
Along with Porto, the three Portuguese sides have had a great deal of success in signing or developing young talent and selling them on at big profits, topping the list of clubs with a positive net balance from transfer fees.
City and Chelsea both had over 200 players go on loan — more than any other club.
