The amount of money being spent on transfers by clubs in the Premier League has increased substantially since its inception in 1992.
In the 2003/04 season, Premier League clubs spent £265 million on transfers compared to nearly £2.8 billion during the 2022/23 season.
Football FanCast has taken a look at the net spend of the Premier League clubs involved in the 2024/25 season, including newly promoted Leicester City, Ipswich Town and Southampton.
All net spend figures are based on Transfermarkt’s expenditure figures from 1992/93 to 2023/24.
Chelsea
-£1.59bn
Enzo Fernandez
Eden Hazard
Manchester City
-£1.47bn
Jack Grealish
Raheem Sterling
Manchester United
-£1.43bn
Paul Pogba
Cristiano Ronaldo
Arsenal
-£861m
Declan Rice
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
Liverpool
-£747m
Virgil van Dijk
Philippe Coutinho
Tottenham Hotspur
-£737m
Tanguy Ndombele
Gareth Bale
Newcastle United
-£637m
Alexander Isak
Andy Carroll
Aston Villa
-£531m
Moussa Diaby
Jack Grealish
West Ham United
-£423m
Lucas Paqueta
Declan RIce
Fulham
-£331m
Jean Michael Seri
Alexsandar Mitrovic
Wolves
-£283m
Matheus Nunes
Matheus Nunes
Everton
-£269m
Gylfi Sugurdsson
Romelu Lukaku
Crystal Palace
-£264m
Christian Benteke
Aaron Wan-Bissaka
Bournemouth
-£250m
Jefferson Lerma
Nathan Ake
Nottingham Forest
-£181m
Ibrahim Sangare
Brennan Johnson
Leicester City
-£141m
Youri Tielemans
Harry Maguire
Brighton & Hove Albion
-£54m
Joao Pedro
Moises Caicedo
Brentford
-£25m
Igor Thiago
Ollie Watkins
Southampton
-£18m
Kamaldeen Sulemana
Virgil van Dijk
Ipswich Town
+£19m
Matteo Sereni
Tyrone Mings
20 Chelsea Net spend: -£1.59bn
At the very top of the list, it’s Chelsea.
Chelsea have spent £3.08 billion on 702 players and generated £1.49 billion from 693 players sold since 1992.
Their most expensive signing of all time came in February 2023, when they signed Benfica midfielder Enzo Fernandez for a British record fee of £107m.
Moises Caicedo – who could yet become their top arrival – Romelu Lukaku and Alvaro Morata all appear in their 10 most expensive signings ever. Eden Hazard is Chelsea’s record departure during the Premier League era, having moved to Real Madrid in July 2019 for just over £100m.
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ByAlex Caple 19 Manchester City Net spend: -£1.47bn
It emerged at the beginning of 2023 that Manchester City had been hit with 115 Premier League charges for alleged financial irregularity, so it is no surprise their net spend is one of the worst out of all Premier League clubs.
It must be noted Man City have strongly denied all of these charges, which include 54 for failure to provide accurate financial information, 35 for failure to cooperate with Premier League investigations and 14 for failure to provide accurate details for player and manager payments.
During their time in the English top flight, Man City have spent £2.38bn on 706 arrivals and made £910m from 702 player departures.
Jack Grealish, who didn’t make Gareth Southgate’s England Euro 2024 squad, is their record arrival. Grealish signed for Man City from Aston Villa in August 2021 for £100m and is arguably yet to live up to his expectations.
Perhaps surprisingly, Raheem Sterling’s transfer to Chelsea in July 2022 for £47.5m is Man City’s most expensive departure in the Premier League era.
18 Manchester United Net spend: -£1.43bn
In February 2024, Manchester United fans were offered a glimmer of hope into a successful future when Sir Jim Ratcliffe bought a 27.7% stake in their club.
Manchester-born Ratcliffe made an investment worth around £1.25bn after he agreed to buy 25% of the club’s class B shares – indicating that further investments are likely in the seasons to come.
This could mean their level of expenditure in the Premier League era could increase dramatically.
Man United have spent £2.17bn on 538 new signings and generated an income of £745m on 543 player departures over the past 22 years. They have the lowest income out of the ‘big six’ in the Premier League’s history.
Their most expensive signing of all time is Paul Pogba, who was banned from football at the start of 2024 for four years for a doping offence.
Pogba re-joined the Manchester club for a world-record transfer fee of £89m in August 2016, following successful campaigns with Juventus. The Frenchman later returned to the Italian side in July 2022.
Cristiano Ronaldo is the club’s most expensive departure to date, following his world-record £80m move to Real Madrid in July 2009.
17 Arsenal Net spend: -£861m
The north London club have spent £1.61bn on 507 players and made £751m in player sales.
Luckily for Arsenal fans, the addition of Declan Rice in the summer of 2023 meant they no longer had to quiver at Nicolas Pepe being their most expensive signing of all time.
Arsenal signed the Ivory Coast winger from Lille for a club record fee of £72m in August 2019, but Rice’s arrival for £105m from West Ham made him their priciest purchase.
It hasn’t been great for Arsenal in the sales department, as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is their most expensive departure of all time and he only left the club for £35m.
Oxlade-Chamberlain rejected a move to Chelsea to sign for Liverpool on a five-year contract worth £120,000 a week in 2017. Arsenal’s record departure sale looks certain to be broken in the near future.
16 Liverpool Net spend: -£747m
Liverpool have been known to spend their money quite wisely with Jurgen Klopp at the helm, but their net spend in the Premier League era is still up there.
The Reds have made the second-most, behind Chelsea, in player sales, having generated an income of £1.03bn from departures since the 1992/93 season. Liverpool’s expenditure sits at £1.78bn on 551 players, which, for any mathematicians out there, averages out at £3.2m per player signed.
Liverpool fans will be delighted to hear that their most expensive signing of all time has arguably been their best player in the last decade.
Virgil van Dijk signed for the Merseyside club at the turn of the new year in 2018 for £75m, in what was a world-record deal for a defender at the time.
They will also be quite happy to learn that they have received the highest-ever fee for a player leaving the Premier League. Barcelona signed Philippe Coutinho from Liverpool in January 2018 for a whopping £105m upfront fee – a British record – that had the potential to rise to £142m in add-ons.
Coutinho had a buyout clause of £355m and remains Barcelona’s most-expensive signing of all time, on a par with Ousmane Dembele – who joined from Borussia Dortmund.
15 Tottenham Hotspur Net spend: -£737m
Tottenham Hotspur have spent £1.66bn on 640 players and received £930m from 647 departures during their time in the Premier League.
The majority of talent that has arrived at the north London club has been in recent years, with the likes of Richarlison, Brennan Johnson, Cristian Romero and James Maddison all in the club’s top five record arrivals.
However, Spurs fans won’t like to hear that their most expensive signing of all time didn’t quite work out for them.
In July 2019, Tottenham announced the addition of then-22-year-old Tanguy Ndombele on a six-year deal, which would’ve seen him at the club until 2025. But the £63m signing rarely showcased his talent during his time at the club, which saw him go on loan back to his parent club Lyon, as well as Napoli and most recently Galatasaray, since he put pen to paper.
Spurs do have a good record when it comes to shifting players on – Gareth Bale joined Real Madrid for a world-record transfer fee of £85m in September 2013.
The Welshman agreed a six-year deal worth £300,000 and the move eclipsed the previous record that Madrid held when they signed Cristiano Ronaldo for £80m in 2009.
Tottenham also received £86.4m for Harry Kane when the England captain made his decision to join German giants Bayern Munich. Kyle Walker, Dimitar Berbatov and Luka Modric are other notable players who have left the club for big money.
14 Newcastle United Net spend: -£637m
Newcastle United have spent the majority of their money since the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF) bought an 80% stake in the club for £300m in October 2021.
In total, they have spent £1.22bn on 569 players in the Premier League era. The north-east club have accumulated the lowest total so far on this list for player sales, having received £589m from 565 players.
Alexander Isak is the club’s most expensive buy, while Sandro Tonali, Anthony Gordon and Harvey Barnes, who have all joined the club since the takeover, all appear at the top of the list.
Isak became PIF’s fourth signing when he joined the club in the 2022 summer transfer window. He signed for Newcastle from Real Sociedad for around £60m and scored 10 goals in 17 Premier League appearances in his first season.
Andy Carroll is the club’s most expensive departure. He joined Liverpool for a club-record fee of about £35m in January 2011 – a record which still stands.
Moussa Sissoko to Spurs, Ayoze Perez to Leicester City and Georginio Wijnaldum to Liverpool have all been significant transfers for Newcastle in terms of income.
13 Aston Villa Net spend: -£531m
Aston Villa’s tally of 68 points come the end of the 2023/24 season meant the club secured Champions League qualification for the first time since it's 90s revamp. So, it is fitting that the majority of their current talent top the transfer history books.
Six of Aston Villa’s seven most expensive signings started 20 or more games during the 2023/24 season. Moussa Diaby is the club’s priciest purchase, and aside from the injury-prone Emiliano Buendia in second, the rest of the top seven is made up of their current best players, such as Ollie Watkins, Pau Torres and Leon Bailey.
Villa signed Diaby from Bayer Leverkusen in July 2023 for an undisclosed fee that was reported to be around the £50m mark.
As for players going the other way, Villa have been largely unsuccessful apart from one huge recent transfer which saw the club take in £100m.
This, of course, was the transfer of Jack Grealish, who left the Villians to join Manchester City in August 2021. It was a British-record fee at the time, and still is, with Declan Rice’s move to Arsenal potentially overtaking it once add-ons are taken into account.
Christian Benteke, Stewart Downing, James Milner and Cameron Archer make up the rest of the top five.
12 West Ham United Net spend: -£423m
It was West Ham who benefited from the sale of Declan Rice to Arsenal as the England midfielder moved to north London for a whopping £100m plus £5m in add-ons during the summer of 2023.
He is West Ham’s most expensive departure to date, with Dimitri Payet’s £25m transfer to Marseille not even close in second.
West Ham have spent £1.1bn on 673 arrivals in the Premier League era, while generating a total £650m income from the sale of 672 players.
The Hammers announced they had signed Lucas Paqueta for a club-record fee in August 2022. The initial £36.5m deal for the Brazilian is expected to rise above £50m based on add-ons, meaning the transfer surpasses the addition of Sebastien Haller for £45m from Eintracht Frankfurt in 2019.
Mohammed Kudus, Edson Alvarez, Felipe Anderson and Kurt Zouma all appear at the top of West Ham’s transfer books.
11 Fulham Net spend: -£331m
Fulham have generated just £278m from 673 player transfers in Premier League history, meaning they have the least total income on the list so far. This averages out at just over £400,000 per player signed.
The Cottagers have spent £609m on the exact same amount of players, with the addition of Jean Michael Seri from OGC Nice being the priciest of the lot.
Aleksandar Mitrovic is the club’s most expensive departure of all time. He joined Saudi Pro League side Al-Hilal for a club record fee of around £50m in August 2023 and scored 28 league goals in his debut season.