Nothing captures the barbarians at the gate nature of capitalism as resoundingly as the English Premier League. You can have someone living puberty ensnared in a tapping controversy forcing FIFA to step in and after ruling in favour, spurn that club to move to Europe. To transform into this era’s greatest hype, re-enter that same club with a mind blowing price tag attached. All well before hitting a quarter of a century. Or a clownish maverick rejected for his defensive indiscipline make a prodigal’s return after two clubs ping pong $150mn on him. Brandishing silly money leads to such stories of redemption. Not some neurotic Freudian endeavour of making the past right. And we are not talking of Paul Pogba and David Luiz. No, really. Actually, yes.
The $160mn swelling the coffers of each club from the $13bn TV revenue windfall plus the EPL’s contract money have leveled the playing field between the haves and the have not. That represents a quantum jump from previous periods. No longer are players lured by the promise of playing for historical giants. That was thrown out of the window by Leicester City. The champions might have lost M’Golo Kante but they have rebounded by retaining Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez on vastly improved salaries. In addition, Ahmed Musa and Islam Slimani have been added to the potent strike force with Nempalys Mendy set to replace Kante as a intercepting force. The Steve Walsh extraction of value added gems supplanted by straightforward financial might.
Careful spenders Everton and Crystal Palace have also flaunted this new found wealth with both clubs splurging on new recruits with renewed hope. West Ham with their new and fancy digs might have had their Europa hopes cruelly snuffed out but are ejaculating money as befitting their porn merchant owners pinning their hopes on Champions league. And Spurs even with Daniel Levy micromanaging every deal ended up spending money. Last minute heists of Moussa Sissoko and the re-negotiated saga of Georges-Kevin Nkoudou pushed their transfer spend to over $90m.
Which brings us to the manager constantly railing against such financial doping. Arsene Wenger, one feels genuinely thought Granit Xhaka would be his only big purchase but then was left flapping in the wind from long term injuries to Per Mertesacker and Gabriel. Never fleet of thought in exigencies, Wenger’s first instinct was internal, and to call on Rob Holding, newly arrived from Bolton and all of 19 years old to partner Calum Chambers, against Liverpool, with a legacy of high stake shootouts in previous encounters. Sure enough, after Phillip Coutinho’s pyromaniacs set the Gunners afire in about 20 minutes, Wenger confronted by radicalized fans, finally reactivated Shkodran Mustafi’s stalled negotiations a month after Mertesacker received his injuries.
Arsenal’s spend with striker Lucas Perez takes it well past $100mn. In the 2015 summer, it was just Petr Cech with a $14m price tag. Arsenal’s peers haven’t sat back either with Chelsea’s new manager Antonio Conte spending over $90m, City under Pep strengthening their squad investing $180m, and United under placating newly appointed Jose Mourinho with his wishlist, bringing in Eric Bailly, Paul Pogba, and Henrikh Mikhtaryan, to prepare his assault on the league title.
All this has led to the league blowing through well over $1.5bn in transfers as compared to last season’s $1.3bn, almost a 20% increase. This for far fewer number of players transferred, 233 this summer transfer compared to 343 in the 2015-2016 season. A fully hundred players for $200mn less. That is why, the average transfer now costs $6.7m over last season’s $4.2mn. The deficit between fees for players sold and transferred has widened very significantly from $675mn to $905mn. All violations of the FFP, remember them, those now quaint rules enacted to force clubs to live within their means? The EPL should be Greece under austerity but TV money has blown every statistic out of the water. It will only get worse.