La Liga makes €102m profit, Premier League loses €487m: Europe’s top five league summer spending in numbers

Sep 3, 2013 1:21:00 PM

With the summer transfer window having come to an end in the major European leagues, Goal takes a look at which competition spent the most

La Liga can consider itself to be one of the winners of the summer transfer window as the only of the top-five leagues to record a significant profit ahead of the 2013-14 campaign, which was in stark contrast to the mammoth deficit that the Premier League racked up.

Despite Real Madrid smashing the world-record transfer fee with the arrival of Gareth Bale from Tottenham for €100 million and Barcelona spending €57m on Brazil international Neymar, the Spanish top flight still recorded a positive balance of €102.6m.

The main reason for La Liga's profitable summer is the departure of Gonzalo Higuain and Mesut Ozil, while Radamel Falcao, Roberto Soldado, Alvaro Negredo, Jesus Navas and Thiago Alcantara all brought in big fees, too.

In second position, Serie A recorded a modest €3.1m profit after a busy summer window which saw plenty of new arrivals to the Italian top flight.

Napoli, for example, brought in players such as the aforementioned Higuain plus Raul Albiol, Dries Mertens and Jose Callejon.

Other big-name players to come to Italy include the likes of Mario Gomez, Kevin Strootman and Carlos Tevez, while Stevan Jovetic, Marquinhos and Erik Lamela all said farewell to Serie A.

	League	Revenue	Expenditure	Total
	La Liga	€492.6m	€390m	€102.6m
	Serie A	€412.8m	€409.7m	€3.1m
	Bundesliga	€204.6m	€263.3m	€-58.7m
	Ligue 1	€229.1m	€378.9m	€-149.8m
	Premier League	€275.4m	€762.7m	€-487.3m

Elsewhere, the Bundesliga had to settle for a €58.7m loss following the arrival of players such as Thiago (Bayern Munich), Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan (both Borussia Dortmund). The exit of players such as Andre Schurrle and Gomez were not enough to make up for the heavy spending of both title candidates.

Unsurprisingly, Ligue 1 saw plenty of cash leave the country due to the Paris Saint-Germain and Monaco's powerful stance on the transfer market.

PSG lured the likes of Cavani and Marquinhos to France, while Claudio Ranieri's side secured the services of Falcao, Geoffrey Kondogbia, Joao Moutinho and James Rodriguez among others.

The most notable departures include Aubameyang, Etienne Capoue, Younes Belhanda and Josuha Guilavogui.

However, the Premier League take the title of this summer's big spenders, with a large part of their expenditure coming on deadline day as Arsenal snapped up Ozil.

Manchester City also spent their fair share of money, though, as they lured Fernandino, Jovetic, Negredo and Navas to England, while Chelsea brought in Schurrle and Willian.

Liverpool (Mamadou Sakho, Iago Aspas and Tiago Ilori) and Tottenham (Lamela, Soldado, Paulinho and Christian Eriksen) both spent big as well in their attempts to win Champions League qualification and even Southampton spent over €30m on foreign signings as they snapped up Victor Wanyama, Dejan Lovren and Pablo Osvaldo.

On the other hand, high-profile departures include the inevitable Bale, Tevez and Gervinho, but Premier League sides in general recouped very little money from transfers abroad compared to their spending.