Premier League in new transfer spending record

A new spending record of the English Premier League clubs during the January transfer window has been set at GBP 160 million, which beats the previous record by GBP 10 million.

Tottenham Hotspur bought Robbie Keane for GBP 15 million from Liverpool, which put the spending total over the top. Tottenham spent GBP 47 million on transfers last month. Manchester City offered GBP 52 million for a single transfer, but their failed bid of GBP 100 million to buy Kaka from AC Milan would have caused the club to single-handedly break the January transfer spending record. As it stands, Deloitte Sports Business Group estimates that Chelsea and Manchester City alone covered 60 percent of the month's total.

The massive spending on transfers was unexpected in the midst of the recession, and many predicted that clubs would cut back and save for the summer. Senior consultant at Deloitte, Alex Byars stated that there was plenty of transfer activity even though only two clubs spent a great deal of money. There were six deals worth GBP 10 million, and compared to previous years there were not many deals of this size in January.

"There has been a lot of doom and gloom about football but the January window seems to show that football might not be recession-proof, but it is certainly more resistant than many other businesses," Byars said. "The big spending has been by two clubs but there has been plenty of other activity.

"The fact is that clubs know they still have their television money coming in, so they can plan ahead for a while yet. Their other main revenue stream is attendances and they have held up surprisingly well so far. That has encouraged clubs to keep spending to some extent."