The Premier League are doping the transfer market: here’s how

Grafica Calciomercato In Tackle Garnacho Tonali Rogers

Maxime Lacroix from Crystal Palace to Chelsea for around €60 million is only the latest deal in chronological order. Even with a fee of that size, it has not sparked the same reaction as some of the market's more eye-catching moves, such as Morgan Rogers joining the Blues from Aston Villa for €137 million, with Alejandro Garnacho moving to Birmingham at the same time and strong interest in Nicolas Jackson. Then there was Tottenham's double swoop worth more than €200 million, with Spurs bringing in Sandro Tonali from Newcastle and Mateus Fernandes from West Ham. There was also the "swap" between Spurs and Brighton that took defender van Hecke to De Zerbi's court for €60 million, alongside Vuskovic's move to the Seagulls for a similar fee. And then came the sale of Elliot Andersson from Nottingham Forest to Manchester City for €135 million.

Figures out of reach

English football is now moving at a pace the rivals scattered across Europe simply cannot sustain. The sums Premier League clubs have at their disposal to strengthen their squads are plainly beyond the reach of the vast majority of clubs on the continent, with the exception of the usual Paris Saint-Germain and the traditional giants such as Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Real Madrid, who through their prestige, their finances (those of the German club) and the huge income guaranteed by the power of their brand and privileged relationships with certain credit institutions, still manage to play leading roles in transfer windows increasingly defined by pharaonic spending.

Here is the Super League

Across the rest of Europe, starting with the stark reality of the Italian game, clubs are now driven by the need to balance the books and build their technical projects on financial sustainability. Investment in transfer fees is suffering, and above all so are players' wages. Yet the feeling, reinforced by these first weeks of "real" transfer business after the natural pause for the World Cup, is that the Premier League are putting in place mechanisms which, both immediately and above all in the medium to long term, will further discourage the ability and willingness of other teams outside England to go after major signings. Those who a few years ago looked on with horror and indignation at the Super League project should now at least recognise that what is happening in England comes very close to that idea of football as an exclusive club that will end up annihilating the concept of fair competition.

Berlusconi’s AC Milan

Not even Serie A in its golden age, from the 1980s to the early 2000s when it brought in the most sought-after players on the international stage, worked on a system of "cannibalising" the best talent from its own league, with fees driven so high that clubs outside the very top could protect their budgets through one or two lucrative sales. Italy did, of course, have the example of Silvio Berlusconi's AC Milan, who in the first half of the 1990s hoovered up several players from other mid-table sides, but they did not reach the level of influence on the international market that English clubs have achieved in recent years.

The Chelsea case

The most controversial deals in the Premier League's usual excessive summer are, as has often been the case over the past few transfer windows, those being carried out by Chelsea. A club who, despite missing out on qualification for next season's Champions League and despite having "stood out" for crazy spending that has comfortably broken through the €1 billion barrier and for a disproportionate number of players in their squad, continue to operate with impunity. In defiance of any Financial Fair Play rules and any logic in managing a dressing room. Chelsea have quite clearly overpaid for a very good player, but certainly not a world-class one, such as England international Morgan Rogers, 14 goals and 12 assists last season, which ended with victory in the Europa League. And, by coincidence, they are moving some of their surplus players on to Aston Villa: after Garnacho, also offered to Roma, Nicolas Jackson could soon be next, with Unai Emery having coached him at Villarreal.

The Arab escape route

As if that were not enough, there is also the strange case of some mega transfers to Saudi Arabia, a country that in recent years has built increasingly strong ties with the world of finance and English football. It has also lured in managers and directors who left the Premier League to settle in the ultra-rich Saudi Pro League on six-figure salaries. Then come the players, and the latest case is former West Ham Crysencio Summerville: just when Roma thought they had sealed it with their latest bid of €50 million including bonuses, Simone Inzaghi's Al-Hilal suddenly swooped in and, with €80 million on the table for the transfer fee and a huge salary of €15 million net per season, took the England international. Their squad still includes, though nobody knows for how long, a certain Darwin Nunez, another player who could have gone anywhere after his disappointing spell at Liverpool but who in the end chose Saudi petrodollars.

The Premier League distorts the transfer market

There are plenty of examples, and they show the mechanism applies to everyone and is designed to keep the system healthy as a whole. If the clubs who cannot compete to win the league still see the historic big clubs (alongside Arsenal, Manchester City, United and Liverpool, that certainly includes Chelsea and Tottenham) as the natural destination for their best prospects, and can get them to pay sums no one else outside England could, that is because the ultimate objective is for the Premier League planet to keep up a rate of growth that is unsustainable for its European rivals. Of course, there is nothing illicit or prohibited by the regulations, but we are certainly talking about situations that are ending up "doping" the global transfer market and forcing the vast majority of non-English clubs to change their objectives and the way they operate in a desperate attempt to keep pace.

Scouting becomes necessary

Alongside the development of their own youth systems, scouting has become a necessary, almost unavoidable tool for clubs in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany and Portugal, as well as across Northern Europe, as they try to counter the Premier League's dominance. Even where the usual Chelsea, who have been moving very aggressively for the past couple of years for Under-17s and Under-19s from all over the world, do not get there, there is still room to step in and snap up plenty of raw talents to work on and build their own projects around. The benefits are technical, but financial too, through player trading that allows clubs to protect their budgets and quickly reinvest in other players.