By Paul Nicholson at the Edinburgh Sports Conference
September 7 – The transfer window just closed saw player agents earn more than $76 million in commissions England, once again the highest value market in Europe for football’s intermediaries.
Other big countries for commissions were Italy where $64 million was earned, Portugal ($42 million), Germany ($73 million) and France ($23 million). 98% of all commission globally were paid by UEFA nations.
Speaking at the Edinburgh Sports Conference today, Kimberley Morris, the head of Integrity & Compliance at FIFA TMS, the world governing body’s online monitoring and registration system for international player transfers, released the figures for the 2017 summer transfer window globally.
Of 7,307 transfers in the window (167 associations have registration periods open June 1 to September 1), 7.4% of fees were less than $1 million. But that is out of a total 1,454 transfers that attracted fees. In 2016 there were 7,353 transfer recorded.
TMS pegs their total transfer value for the window at $4.67 billion, a figure that doesn’t include inter-country club transfers (Romelu Lukaku’s move from Everton to Man Utd, for example).
Of that $4.67 billion figure, 78% came from Europe’s big five associations of England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
That number further focuses down with 47% of all spending coming from just 50 transfers, with 43 of the most expensive transfers between the big five European associations.
When it comes to Winter versus Summer spending, it seems money flows more freely when the sun is out. 49% of transfers occur in summer but a huge 78% of the year’s spending occurs in summer.
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