PREMIER LEAGUE clubs were responsible for more than a quarter of the entire world’s record international summer window transfer splurge.
And that was BEFORE the huge deals between top flight clubs were taken into account.
English sides splashed out £1.6BILLION to sign players from overseas clubs, according to Fifa’s official figures.
The biggest deals were the £77m paid by Manchester City for Croatian defender Josko Gvardiol, Rasmus Hojlund’s £64m switch to Manchester United and Liverpool’s £60m capture of Dominik Szoboszlai.
It meant Prem sides accounted for 26 per cent of the global £5.9bn spent on moving players across borders – a sum which included two England stars, with Jude Bellingham joining Real Madrid in a deal worth up to £113m and Harry Kane’s £100m move to Bayern Munich from Spurs.
But the figures did not include three of the biggest summer deals which were entirely between Prem clubs, with Chelsea snaring Moises Caicedo from Brighton for £115m, Declan Rice moving across London to Arsenal for £105m and the Gunners’ £65m move for Kai Havertz.
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Fifa registered more than 10,000 international deals in the summer window – and a staggering £558m in agents’ fees.
The record global summer spend was 47 per cent higher than in 2022 and 26.8 per cent above the previous record, set in 2019.
Fifa confirmed that Saudi Arabian clubs were second in the spending list with a total of £701m, ahead of France, Germany, Italy and Spain, whose clubs spent £325m.
But German clubs were the biggest beneficiaries of the wheeling and dealing with the Bundesliga sides selling players internationally for £890m.
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The likes of Neymar, Riyad Mahrez and Jordan Henderson all moved to the Saudi Pro League for substantial fees.
And Saudi spending is only likely to increase with Kylian Mbappe and Mo Salah also targeted over the summer.
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