ZURICH: FIFA, football’s global governing body, has released the latest edition of its winter ‘Big 5 Transfer Window Analysis’. The data published in this report has been extracted from the International Transfer Matching System (ITMS) used by all 211 FIFA member associations and over 7,500 professional football clubs around the globe for the international transfer of professional football players.
According to the report, clubs in England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France combined to spend a whopping $642.7 million, which is 59.1% of money spent globally by all clubs during the winter transfer season from 1-31 January 2019.
Clubs from the Premier League, the Ligue 1, the German Bundesliga, the Serie A and the LaLiga combined to spend $605.1 million of that money, corresponding to 94.1% of the entire total.
Courtesy the Premier League, England was yet again the world‘s biggest spender during the period with $178.2 million, despite a 65% decrease in spending compared to a record- breaking registration period in January 2018.
Italy was the second-biggest spender ($144.6 million, rise of 459%), followed by Germany ($112.5 million, rise of 56.7%), Spain ($112 million, decrease by 70.1%) and France ($95.4 million, rise of 104.6%).
Compared to January 2018, the volume of international transfers to the ‘Big 5’ increased by 6.4%, with 282 clubs across these nations, completing an average of 2.1 incoming transfers per club.
