The gross spend for 2023’s window was 90 per cent higher than the previous record of £430m in 2018 and almost triple the previous January window (£295m). Here are nine transfers you might have missed.
The record for a full season had already been broken by a £1.92billion summer outlay, with that mark soon extended through £2bn for the first time and to an eventual total of £2.8bn – a new all-time high.
Calum Ross, assistant director in Deloitte’s Sports Business Group, told the PA news agency: “Record transfer spend in January, surpassing the previous record of £430m in January 2018.
“(In terms of) a seasonal spend in 2022-23, Premier League clubs are now over £2.5billion which highlights the level of capability of spend that they’ve got in the market at the moment.”
Premier League clubs also set a record for net transfer expenditure during a January window with a net spend of £720m, eclipsing the previous record set in January 2022 (£180m).
As has been the trend in recent seasons, the English top flight far outpaced the rest of Europe – even the other members of the so-called ‘big five’ leagues in Spain, Italy, France and Germany, where there was a cumulative gross spend of 255m euros (£225m), representing a year-on-year fall of 35 per cent compared to January 2022 (395m euros, £348.7m).
Chelsea, under their new ownership group headed by Todd Boehly, continued to lead the way by signing World Cup winner Enzo Fernandez for a British record £106.8m while forward Mykhailo Mudryk joined from Shakhtar Donetsk in a deal reportedly worth up to £88.5m.
The Blues’ £300m-plus outlay alone would rank behind only 2018 among Premier League winter transfer windows, and is more than the combined spend of all other clubs in the big five leagues this month.
The Blues’ £300m-plus outlay alone would rank behind only 2018 among Premier League winter transfer windows, and is more than the combined spend of all other clubs in the big five leagues this month.
