It's no secret that the Premier League is the most economically powerful league. Nor is it that Real Madrid has been immersed in a much more austere transfer policy for some time. Or that Barcelona, Inter and PSG have been three of the great cOpponents of the English teams when it comes to market turmoil. However, a quick look at the teams with the worst win / loss balance since summer 2016 sheds a tremendous stream of light on these assumptions. Manchester City and Manchester United present a negative invoice of 631 and 586 million euros, respectively, if we add the sales and subtract the transfers from the last ten transfer windows. While there is to go down to the thirtieth position to locate the whites, with a balance of -91 million, behind teams like Leeds de Bielsa, a recently promoted to the Premier.
The Premier reigns in the market
In this compilation of numbers carried out by the CIES 'Football Observatory', in which they only compute teams that belong to the five major leagues, we find Barça (Griezmann, Coutinho, Dembélé …), PSG (Neymar, Mbappé …) and Inter (Lukaku, Nainggolan, Skriniar …) closing the top-5, as we previously ventured, with a negative balance of 471, 455 and 386 million euros. All of them ahead of the following Premier League battalion: Everton (€ -346M), Aston Villa (€ -339M), Chelsea (€ -308M) and Arsenal (€ -299M) complete the top ten positions, with the Milan (-311M €) as the only 'intruder' in eighth place.
Balance in the transfer market since summer 2016
| Pos. | Equipment | Balance (€ M) |
| one | M. City | -631 |
| 2 | M. United | -586 |
| 3 | Barça | -471 |
| 4 | PSG | -455 |
| 5 | Inter | -386 |
| 6 | Everton | -346 |
| 7 | Aston Villa | -339 |
| 8 | Milan | -311 |
| 9 | Chelsea | -308 |
| 10 | Arsenal | -299 |
| 14 | Juventus | -249 |
| 18 | Bayern | -171 |
| 2. 3 | Liverpool | -129 |
| 24 | Leeds | -115 |
| 27 | Athletic | -104 |
| 29 | Seville | -92 |
| 30 | R. Madrid | -91 |
Source: 'CIES'.
Until we reach the balance presented by Madrid, we find ourselves, how could it be otherwise, teams like him Tottenham (€ -250M), Juventus (€ -249M), Bayern Munich (€ -171M) or Liverpool (€ -129M). But it is impressive, or not so impressive, to see how Wolverhampton (-249M €), Fulham (-190M €), Parma (-158M €), Sheffield United (€ 134M), the aforementioned Leeds (-115M €), the Hertha Berlin (-109M €), the Wolfsburg (-108M €), the Crystal palace (-100M €) …
Madrid controls spending
Even Atlético de Madrid (-104M €) and Sevilla (-92M €) steal a place on the LaLiga podium from the whites in this particular classification. This does not mean that Florentino has not shaken the piggy bank, they are the tenth team with the highest spending on transfers (€ 661M), but the sales made (€ 570M), led by the 117 million entered by the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo to Juventus in 2018, they smoothed out the accounts enormously.
The pandemic has also had a strong effect on the Madrid trend, with the current season as the best example. No arrivals in summer or winter (in addition to the premature return of Odegaard, to depart again), entered up to 100.5 million euros in the white coffers, according to data from Transfermarkt, counting total transfer and transfer fees: the € 40 million that Achraf cost Inter (if he manages to finish paying it) and the 30 paid by Tottenham for Reguilón head this line.
The great signings since that summer of 2016 that is taken as a reference arrived in 2019, since the four largest investments occurred at that time: Hazard (€ 100 M plus variables), Jovic (€ 63 M), Militao (€ 50 M) and Mendy (€ 48 M). Besides of goodbye ronaldo, stand out the 66 and 45 million that Chelsea paid for Morata in 2017 and for Kovacic in 2019, respectively, or the 30 of Atleti by Marcos Llorente that same summer. It is expected that in future markets, see Mbappé, Haaland, Camavinga …, the trend will change.
Ligue 1 exports talent and earns millions
Regarding positive balances, we did not find any English team, confirming the economic muscle they have, already discussed. While Ligue 1, a regular exporter of talent, places three teams in the top five with more benevolent scores. Lille have made a profit of 191 million, Olympique de Lyon of 151 and Monaco of 132, with Atalanta (€ 133 million) and Hoffenheim (€ 87 million) completing the top five.
Balance in the transfer market since summer 2016
| Pos. | Equipment | Balance (€ M) |
| one | Lille | 191 |
| 2 | O. Lyon | 151 |
| 3 | Atalanta | 133 |
| 4 | Monaco | 132 |
| 5 | Hoffenheim | 87 |
| 6 | St- Etienne | 78 |
| 7 | B. Dortmund | 77 |
| 8 | Sampdoria | 76 |
| 9 | Genoa | 75 |
| 10 | Valencia | 67 |
Source: 'CIES'
The top-10 closes it Valencia, the first protagonist of LaLiga, while Borussia Dortmund appear in seventh place (€ 77m), a position that if confirmed by the powerful of its stars (Sancho, Haaland, Reyna …) who have been guessing for a long time will fall short. In addition to the set che, another eight teams have a positive balance in our league: Athletic (€ 66M), Real Sociedad (€ 46M), Celta (€ 29M), Levante (€ 17M), Elche (€ 6M), Huesca (€ 5M), Cádiz (€ 4M) and Alavés (€ 2 M).