The Premier League premium is £20m - and that worries European clubs

What the report says

BBC Sport Football reports that this summer’s transfer window showed how Premier League clubs are increasingly paying a significant extra amount, or “premium,” when buying from one another. The article says the average fee for a player moving between Premier League sides was £39.4m, compared with £20.2m for signings from outside England, highlighting what finance experts describe as a Premier League tax. It notes that deals such as Carlos Baleba’s move from Brighton to Manchester United, Savio’s switch to Tottenham and Iliman Ndiaye’s transfer to Everton illustrate how fees inside England can reach levels many European clubs cannot match.

The report says domestic spending has risen sharply, with 27 transfers worth £40m or more this summer, up from 13 a year earlier. Of those, 18 were between Premier League clubs, compared with six two years ago. BBC Sport says this reflects both the league’s huge revenues and the importance of transfer profits under financial rules, which encourage clubs to buy, develop and resell players. It also points to new accounting rules that make the timing and structure of sales more important for clubs trying to stay within spending limits.

The piece suggests this trend is changing the wider European market. Clubs such as FC Porto, represented in the article by president Andre Villas-Boas, say they increasingly compete with lower-tier English sides for talent, rather than only the continent’s biggest teams. BBC Sport adds that, while a few elite clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain can still compete, the Premier League’s spending power is now shaping prices and competition well beyond England.