City are the second biggest transfer spenders in the world this seasonUpdated: March 30th, 2008
Now that’s not a headline I ever thought I’d be writing last season, but amazingly, here we are.
Below are the top 20 transfer spenders in the world this season. The figures are for net spending, so include the value of players sold. Figures for leagues outside the Premiership come from the excellent transfermarkt.de.
City’s net figure has been revised upwards since the summer, following the publication of the club’s latest Report & Accounts last month. Although our eight summer signings are reported to have cost £41.4m, the official accounts reveal the real figure to be £50.6m.
That leaves a difference of £9.2m, which is probably the amount we paid in agents fees. According to this story in The Express, Jerome Anderson was paid between £7m to £8m by City in the summer.
Below are City’s transfer dealings as reported in the media and on the official website, and excluding agents fees (loan deals are not included):
The fees for Elano, Petrov, Garrido and Barton come from the official site. Sky reported that Gelson Fernandes cost 9.5m Swiss francs, and premierleague.com and transfermarkt.de both put the Bianchi fee at €13m. There’s an element of doubt about the exact fees for Corluka and Bojinov. Premierleague.com say we only paid £4m for him, but I’ve used the €13m figure given by Zagreb’s vice-chairman. Bojinov’s fee was reported as both £5.7m and £6m and by premierleague.com and transfermarkt claim it was €8m (£5.4m), but as every other report has it at €8.5m (£5.7m) that’s the one I’m going with. Miller’s fee was reported on the official West Brom site, Benjani’s fee is from the BBC and Caicedo’s is from Sky.
Next is the breakdown of Premiership transfer spending for this season. Figures come from Daily Telegraph and The Guardian and soccerbase.com.
And finally, to put our recent spending into some perspective, here’s how our transfer dealings compare to other Premiership clubs over the last five years:
~ City slipped out of the world top 20 richlist for last season. Turnover fell from £61.8m to £56.9m in the year to 31 May 2007, largely due to a £1.9m drop in gate receipts and a £1.6m fall in concert revenue. But turnover is expected to top £75m this season, which will easily put us back into the top 20.
~ You can find more details about Anderson’s involvement with City, in this Guardian feature