For the aggregators on social media and transfer gurus, January was not what was desired.
Twelve months on from the biggest January spend in Premier League history, when £815million was dropped, accounting for 84 per cent of spending across Europe in that month, January 2024 was a much quieter affair.
Much quieter is actually a major understatement, with the transfer window seeing a spend of just £100m from Premier League clubs, just 12% of the total spend of the previous year. Transfers are one of the biggest drivers of global interest in the Premier League, with the never-ending thirst for the dopamine hit provided by a new signing seldom quelled.
January 2023 was the window of Chelsea. The Stamford Bridge club signed Enzo Fernandez for what was then a British transfer record of £106.8m, as well as spending eye-watering sums on the likes of Mykhailo Mudryk, Benoit Badiashile, Noni Madueke, Malo Gusto, Andrey Santos, and David Datro Fofana. A spend of £270.2m saw the Blues account for around 28% of all business done across Europe.
But a cold chill has breezed through the offices of Premier League club executives, and the 10-point punishment that was handed down to Everton in November by an independent commission following a breach of the League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) in 2021/22, followed by further charges against the Toffees and Nottingham Forest for 2022/23 last month, has dampened the desire to engage in a January market where value has historically been hard to find.
But is the PSR worry really the only factor behind the lack of spending, or does it point to a wider issue? Or is it that the quiet January may be the precursor to a bumper summer of transfer activity? The Bottom Line spoke to Daniel Geey, a partner at Sheridan’s and author of the books ‘Done Deal’ and ‘Build the Invisible’, to find out…
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Bottom Line to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
