Transfers: Manchester City FC become the first club to spend over €1bn on its squad

"For the first time in history, a football club invested more than one billion euro in transfer indemnities to assemble its squad: Manchester City FC (Premier League €1.014m)," announced the CIES Football Observatory in its weekly letter published on 09/09/2019.

CIES presented a ranking of the 98 clubs competing in the European Top 5 leagues (Premier League, Bundesliga, Serie A TIM, LaLiga Santander and Ligue 1 Conforama) according to the amount invested in the transfer market to form their 2019-20 squad. Alongside Manchester City on the podium are Paris Saint-Germain (Ligue 1 Conforama, €913m) and Real Madrid CF (LaLiga Santander, €902m).

"The gap between the costliest and cheapest squad per league is x148 in LaLiga (Real Madrid CF vs RCD Mallorca), x114 in Ligue 1 Conforama (Paris Saint-Germain vs Nîmes Olympique), x85 in the Bundesliga (Bayern Munich vs SC Paderborn 07), x63 in the Serie A TIM (Juventus FC vs US Lecce) and x32 in the Premier League (Manchester City FC vs Norwich City FC). This reflects the great financial divides in European football," said CIES.

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