Earlier this month, AFC Bournemouth forward Antoine Semenyo moved to Manchester City for an initial £62.5 million. Everything about the deal felt significant: A huge fee, a huge deal and a huge moment for the Ghana international. Yet, for many inside football, it didn’t feel that big at all.
That is likely because we’ve grown used to this type of deal. Semenyo became the ninth player this season to move from one Premier League club to another for a fee of £50 million or more.
In the space of just a handful of years, that exact kind of transfer has become remarkably commonplace, establishing two new unwritten rules: First, this is the fee Premier League clubs now command for their top stars; second, clubs that for years avoided doing business with direct rivals are now willingly to partner on big-money transfers.
In the summer of 2024, only three players (Dominic Solanke, Pedro Neto and Amadou Onana) moved to another Premier League club for £50 million or more. There have been nine already this term, while the total transfer fees between teams has eclipsed £1 billion for the first time.
It is a marked change. It begs a question, though … Why?
Friend or foe, Premier League clubs are open for business
Until 2018-19, there used to be plenty of deals between Premier League clubs, albeit not often for a significant fee. A noticeable drop-off happened that season and rose only steadily ever since … until this season.
There’s still two weeks left in the January transfer window, but there have already been more of such transfers this season (39) than in any year since 2018. It is striking how many of these deals are happening and how easily sums of £50 million-plus are changing hands.
Naturally, inflation plays a part in this. The world is more expensive than it was five years ago, pushing costs up. But ask people inside football and there is still a sense of surprise.
Alex Levack, the agent who negotiated defender Ben White‘s £50 million move from Brighton to Arsenal in 2021, tells ESPN how that fee felt novel almost five years ago.
“That transfer [White] was quite special — especially given it was a defender,” he said. “I thought ‘£50 million, wow. That is quite an incredible achievement for Ben and myself.’ But when you deep dive and see that a five-year cycle of £50 million-plus deals has nearly been matched in a one-year period, you can see that the level of these transfer fees is rising rapidly.”
Indeed, from 2020-2025, there were 13 transfers between Premier League clubs for £50 million or more. Most were between £50 million-£60 million, but Jack Grealish to City (£100 million), Declan Rice to Arsenal (£105 million) and Moisés Caicedo to Chelsea (£115 million) all breached nine figures, and more once add-ons are included.
That makes this season’s tally of nine all the more eyebrow-raising. In some cases, it wasn’t just the cost of the deal, but the nature of it, that shocked.
Newcastle and Liverpool, two Champions League teams, did a £125 million deal for Alexander Isak; Nottingham Forest enjoyed a great season, qualified for the Europa League, but sent Anthony Elanga to Newcastle for £55 million; sworn London rivals Tottenham and West Ham, who had not done business together for 15 years, struck a £55 million deal for Mohammed Kudus. Most strikingly of all, Chelsea gladly sent winger Noni Madueke to Arsenal for £48 million plus add-ons.
Is it all due to Profit & Sustainability Rules?
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Strengthening league rivals used to be avoided, but club accounting departments can’t be so picky.
“A big element of this has to be PSR,” Levack tells ESPN. “Historically, you would never get Chelsea sending players to Arsenal like that [Madueke deal]. It was at least a lot less common. But the bigger clubs are the ones with the money, so they can pay the bigger transfer fees.”
Levack says Premier League teams would previously look to offload players to European clubs, even if it meant they received a lower transfer fee. Now, that drop-off is too much.
“Look at the transfer fees that clubs in Italy or Spain are paying now,” he adds. “It’s a reduction of 20%, 30%, 40% from what you’d get from a rival Premier League club.”
In the simplest terms, clubs can’t afford to stomach that reduction in the era of PSR, where profit margins and balance sheets are examined closely. It has led to a change in transfer strategy: Clubs are now willing to risk a player coming back to haunt them if it leads to a better transfer fee.
It’s possible Manchester City’s summer of 2022 served as a catalyst for this. Until that point, Premier League clubs were reluctant to deal with each other, and the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, which wrecked football’s finances, still loomed. However, during that transfer window, City sent Raheem Sterling (£47.5 million) to Chelsea, plus Gabriel Jesus (£45 million) and Oleksandr Zinchenko (£30 million) to Arsenal. It felt different at the time and may well have shaped a change in attitude across the division.
Because while England’s top tier may have broken into a different financial stratosphere compared to the rest of Europe, PSR still creates pressure to generate revenue and balance the books, which is most quickly and easily achieved by parting with a quality player.
However, PSR isn’t the only reason.
Why Chelsea (effectively) get Brighton to do their scouting
UEFA’s most recent annual financial report, assessing the 2023-24 European season, laid bare the monetary gulf at play. Premier League clubs reported combined revenues of £5.9 billion (€7.1 billion). That left their closest competitors in LaLiga (€3.7 billion) and Bundesliga (€3.6 billion) far behind. The Guardian calculated that a typical mid-table Premier League team earns 60% more than its equivalent in Spain or Germany, and three times its Serie A counterpart.
Alex Stewart, CEO of Analytics FC, a consultancy firm which advises on player contracts, managerial hires and transfers, told ESPN that the Premier League is now so flush with cash that clubs are choosing to pay the premium for a proven player at that level.
“The amount of money available to Premier League clubs means that the risk mitigation for a higher fee is worthwhile,” Stewart explains. “Five-to-10 years ago, smart clubs in the Premier League could lean on clubs in Ligue 1, Bundesliga, or just Europe generally, to do their scouting for them by proxy.”
Bayer Leverkusen, Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig, AS Monaco, Rennes and more became fertile scouting grounds for England’s top teams, and certain trends you could trust emerged. “You’d know if Mainz signed a French center back, they were probably really good,” Stewart said. “Likewise, Eintracht Frankfurt’s record with strikers is exceptional.”
But that landscape has changed. Even the Premier League’s midtable sides can afford to sign these players now. Stewart believes that creates a new tier in the food chain: England’s top dogs simply let that happen, allow the smaller clubs to take on the risks of a player moving to a new country, then pay a premium for the proven success stories.
“Instead of getting RB Leipzig or Mainz to do your scouting for you by proxy, you’re getting Bournemouth or Brighton to do it,” Stewart says.
“Honestly, that makes sense. For a couple of those bigger clubs, particularly Manchester United, the Brighton and Bournemouth scouting setup is considerably better anyway. You can say for sure Bournemouth know how to sign center backs — just look at Ilya Zabarnyi (who joined PSG for £54.5 million) and Dean Huijsen (Real Madrid, £50 million).”
The proof is in the pudding: Brighton have made huge profits on deals for Caicedo, White, João Pedro, Marc Cucurella and more; Bournemouth’s returns on the transfers of Huijsen, Zabarnyi, Milos Kerkez and Semenyo have been game-changing; and other clubs have carved out niches too, like how Brentford never miss when it comes to recruiting strikers.
Will the bubble burst?
Football tends to be cyclical, whipping through trends all the time. That applies to tactical approaches, formations, recruitment — everything. It will likely apply to this, too.
A 10-year chart of Premier League-to-Premier League club transfers shows three seasons of heavy trading between teams from 2015-18, then a sudden, steep drop-off. What caused it? Perhaps the level of spending was deemed unsustainable? Perhaps the lack of success stories within that spending led teams to search for better value abroad?
That would not be a surprise. After all, the final season’s spending during that period, 2017-18, did not age particularly well. The Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Alexis Sánchez swap deal was a high-priced disaster, as was Danny Drinkwater’s move to Chelsea. Nemanja Matic to Man United and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to Liverpool did not hit the heights for long, and even Romelu Lukaku’s stint at Old Trafford ended after two complicated years.
The only unequivocally successful deals struck between Premier League clubs for £30 million or more that year were Kyle Walker to Manchester City and Virgil van Dijk to Liverpool.
Concerningly, last summer’s signings have hardly proven worth the outlay so far either. That’s not to deem them all flops at a far-too-early-stage, but few — if any — have lived up to what is an almighty price tag. It might be that the “Premier League-proven” quality so many of these clubs are paying a premium for quickly becomes something they avoid once again.
There’s also a natural danger in loading up on too many of these players, as they cost plenty in wages as well as transfer fees. As many as 11 of Chelsea’s first-team squad were recruited from Premier League teams, mitigating the short-term cost with very (very!) long contracts. There are eleven in Newcastle’s squad too — although the figures spent are smaller. Is it a coincidence that both of these teams have pushed the limits of PSR for the last two seasons?
Success will mean that trend continues. But, a few too many flops could mean it will be 2018 all over again.
