The winter transfer window is closed in the European top 5 leagues and thus, from a transfer perspective, the 2025/26 season is over. Having already analyzed the winter transfer window within the top five leagues in one of our recent articles (you can find the article here), in this article we analyze the entire transfer result of the 2025/26 season, consisting of the summer and winter transfer windows. We discuss income, expenses, balances, the sheer number of player transfers, and also a comparison with recent years. The following table shows the income, expenses and the number of players transferred. The data were provided by Transfermarkt and compiled, analyzed and prepared in the table by Football Finance Lab.
Premier League Spending Power: Key Financial Insights of the 2025/26 Transfer Season
What immediately stands out and is not surprising is the financial superiority of the Premier League. At 4.05 billion euros, this league spent more than the other four leagues combined (3.92 billion euros). But not only in terms of spending, but also in terms of revenue, the Premier League is circling alone at the top. In total, PL clubs raised €2.42 billion, almost double the revenue of Serie A clubs (€1.3 billion). Revenue and expenditure also automatically give the most negative balance at -1.63 billion euro. Due to extremely high spending, not a single other league achieves even remotely such high numbers. The balance is higher than the expenses of each individual league, which also clearly underlines how financially the Premier League itself is depriving its closest pursuers. The clear second is Serie A, which has the second highest revenue (1.3 billion euros), the second highest expenditure (1.44 billion euros) and the second most negative balance with -142 million euros. Serie A thus spent almost as much as Ligue 1 and La Liga combined, which had the lowest overall spending at 746 million and 770 million euros respectively. While La Liga raised only 763 million euros, the clubs of the French upper house achieved a whopping 1.2 billion euros. This makes the balances very different. While La Liga achieved a small loss of 7 million euros, Ligue 1 achieved the best balance with 449 million euros plus. The Bundesliga was the only other league to achieve a positive balance of approximately 130 million euros, resulting in 1.09 billion euros in revenue and 963 million euros in expenditure.
In terms of the sheer number of transfers, Ligue 1, La Liga, Premier League and Bundesliga are on the same level, ranging between approximately 400-460 arrivals and departures each. The fact that La Liga still generates the fewest revenue and expenditure is particularly due to the Squad Cost Limit (here you will find a detailed explanation as well as the official figures of all La Liga clubs), which limits the clubs’ financial resources. It should also not be forgotten that Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga are home to only 18 teams, two teams fewer than La Liga and the Premier League. This particularly shows how much more Ligue 1 and Bundesliga operate in the transfer market than La Liga. Serie A far surpasses all top 5 leagues in terms of arrivals and departures. It recorded 1012 new additions and 823 departures. This is (almost) twice as much as the runner-up for both values. The number of new signings is particularly surprising and if these were distributed equally among the 20 clubs, that would be around 50(!) New signings per club. That is an enormously high figure for two transfer windows, for which we do not, however, have any explanation to back up with facts.
Five‑Year Transfer Market Trends: How Europe’s Top Leagues Have Evolved
The financial dominance of the Premier League can also be seen in comparison over the last 5 years. In each of the 5 years, the Premier League spent the most money and even if you take the 2021/22 season as the least spent season (€1.71 billion), the Premier League still has the highest spending compared to Serie A spending this season (€1.44 billion). While Premier League spending has also increased significantly (from €1.71 billion to €4.05 billion) but has also fluctuated annually, Premier League clubs’ revenues have increased year after year (from €825 million to €2.42 billion). However, due to the sharp increase in expenditure, this does not really affect the balance. This has doubled in negative terms within the last 5 years (from -884 million to -1.63 billion euros). These Saldi are also a superlative compared to the other leagues. Here, Serie A also had the most negative balance of any other league in the 2024/25 season at -385 million euros, which is not even half of the Premier League balance from the 2021/22 season.
In general, Serie A is the only league after the Premier League that has a predominantly negative balance. Over the last 5 years, the Italian top flight has had a positive balance in the 2023/24 season (€93 million up). This is probably due to the high number of transfer movements compared to the Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and La Liga. These are approximately twice as high in each season than in all other leagues. Especially among new signings, Serie A is the only league that breaks the 1000 mark.
The best balance in the accumulation over the 5 years is achieved by Ligue 1, which has a total value of 386 million euros. Only the Bundesliga can compete here, which has collected a cumulative total of 321 million euros. It is also interesting to see that Ligue 1 spending has increased continuously until its peak in 2023/24 with 1.19 billion euros and then fell again to 746 million euros until the current season. This is probably due to declining TV funds and non-payment of them, which means that some clubs are having financial problems and are operating on the transfer market with severe restrictions. This is also underpinned by the sharp increase in revenues, which rose from 493 million euros to 1.2 billion euros and thus more than doubled.
In the Bundesliga, the figures fluctuate most on the revenue side. These vary from 553 million euros in 2021/22 to 1.1 billion euros in the 2023/24 season. Expenditure, on the other hand, has risen continuously over the years from EUR 515 million to EUR 963 million, thus also almost doubling. This combination leads to the fluctuating balance, which is nevertheless positive in 4 out of 5 seasons.
La Liga is the league with the most continuous and stable development, both in terms of revenue and expenditure. Year after year, revenues increased from 395 million to 770 million euros this season. This also applies to revenues, which increased from 293 million to 763 million euros. The unequal increase means that the balance repeatedly fluctuates between positive and negative overall results. Overall, the numbers have increased on both sides, but the number of arrivals and departures has remained the same, suggesting that transfers are generally becoming more expensive and there is more money in the market.
Global League Comparison: How Europe’s Big Five Stack Up Against Emerging Competitors
The top 5 leagues largely dominate the other leagues in spending this season. The top 5 occupy 5 of the 6 top places in the editions. The Saudi Pro League alone managed to finish fourth with approximately 780 million euros, placing it ahead of La Liga and Ligue 1. Behind these, in seventh place, come the Turkish Süper Lig and in eighth place the Brazilian Campeonato Brasileiro Série A. In ninth place is the English Championship. This makes it the best second division and, crazy enough, ahead of many other leagues such as the MLS, Liga Portugal and the Eredivisie. In terms of balance, the Belgian Jupiler Pro League beats many leagues, finishing second behind Ligue 1 with a balance of 281 million euros. Compared to the small league size and low expenditure of only 61 million euros, the Danish Superliga is also very high in the balance comparison with a balance of 104 million euros. This league thus underpins its status as a training and sales league.
The conclusion is that the Premier League has shown its financial dominance very clearly in the transfer market over the last 5 years and no single league can even come close to matching the figures of the English elite. The term top 5 leagues sounds misleading in this context, as the Premier League plays in its own league by a wide margin and then the remaining leagues come along. This is particularly evident in the balances of the remaining top 5 leagues, which are mostly positive and thus show that these also depend on high revenues. An example of this is RC Lens, which plans for and relies on high transfer revenues in its business model (the full analysis of RC Lens can be found in this article).
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