UEFA report warns Premier League's €4.6bn spending relies on a fragile model

The report puts that outlay at 56 per cent of the 20 clubs' annual revenue, against an average of 33 per cent across the decade before Covid. The Irish Examiner reported that television deals worth almost £4bn a year underpinned the spending.

Across Europe, men's clubs broke the €10bn barrier for the first time, an 8 per cent rise on 2025 and 43 per cent above the pre-pandemic peak of 2019, the report said. The study covers attendances and youth development as well as transfer activity.

A two-speed market

The average inbound fee at a Premier League club rose 8 per cent to a record €24m, the report said. In the other major European leagues the average sat between €4m and €5m. English clubs were involved in more than 60 per cent of all deals.

The top of the market moved fastest. Deals above €50m rose from 14 in summer 2024 to 23 in 2025, then 35 this year. Premier League clubs were behind 29 of the 35.

Andrea Traverso, UEFA's financial sustainability and research director, wrote that these developments point to "an increasing concentration of talent and a growing polarisation of the market, with the emergence of a clear two-speed system".

Domestic market dominates

The report observed: "As few clubs outside England are able to match wages or transfer prices, English clubs are relying increasingly on the internal market for their record earnings and the profits that these deals tend to trigger."

Fees on transfers between English clubs rose 44 per cent to €1.55bn (£1.33bn), which UEFA said made the domestic English market as large in fee value as the next five market flows combined. The next biggest flow was the Bundesliga selling to the Premier League, at €690m (£594m).

Record sales and fines

The report said Chelsea and Aston Villa both broke the all-time record for one club's transfer earnings in a single summer. The previous mark was Monaco's, set in 2017. Chelsea earned an estimated €471m (£405m) and Villa €366m (£314.7m).

Both clubs had been fined by UEFA for breaches of its financial sustainability rules for the second summer in a row, the Irish Examiner reported.

The report estimated European clubs made a €6.8bn (£5.85bn) profit on academy sales, €655m more than in 2025. It found little evidence of clubs using multi-club ownership structures to move players for inflated or reduced fees. Such deals totalled €152m (£130.8m) against an estimated market value of €159m (£136.8m), with more than half the spend moving between Chelsea and Strasbourg.

Why Traverso calls it fragile

Traverso wrote that rising transfer values increase future pressure on club financial results through higher amortisation charges.

He wrote that those costs are currently offset in part by significant transfer profits, but this creates a more fragile model, with clubs increasingly dependent on continued market inflation and liquidity.

He wrote that many acquisitions are not paid for immediately: payments are often deferred over several years, while transfer receivables may be factored to generate short-term cash. The result is "a growing level of transfer debt and a greater reliance on future inflows to finance past investment".

He wrote that any slowdown in buyer demand, correction in transfer values or tightening of credit conditions could expose underlying pressure on profitability and financial sustainability.

What happens next

UEFA describes the summer figures as provisional estimates based on reported values, to be confirmed only once clubs submit their financial data directly to UEFA.