The 20 teams that make up the Premier League spent 2,930 million euros in transfers in the season that is about to end, an investment similar to that of the three continental leagues that follow in spending, the French Ligue 1 (1,117), the Italian Serie A (989) and the German Bundesliga (976). In Spain the economic injection remained at just over 538 million. “The expenditure rate says nothing about the strength of a competition,” says Javier Tebas, president of LaLiga, who defends the sustainability of teams that when the tap was open accumulated debts and defaults. And triumphs. If you also zoom in on the clubs, you can see that five of the 10 that have spent the most money this season on signings are English. Chelsea, Tottenham, Manchester City, Arsenal and Manchester United are in that select panel that integrates two Saudi squads (Al Hilal and Al-Ahli) for the first time. To find the first Spanish team in that ranking you have to go down to 17th place. There is Real Madrid, which of the 129 million it allocated to strengthening itself dedicated 103 million to recruit Bellingham. To find another LaLiga club you have to drop to 49th place, where Atlético is, behind Sassuolo, Stade Rennais or Strasbourg.
18 of the 20 Premier League teams spent more than the mattress makers. But this year, among the six finalists (Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Atalanta, Bayer Leverkusen, Fiorentina and Olympiacos) in the European competitions there is no English team. Aston Villa was the last to fall. They lost both games in the Conference League semifinals against Olympiacos and confirmed the debacle.
England led the rankingsof European competitions since he took over from Spain in the 2017-18 campaign, which had tyrannized them the previous four seasons. A year ago, Manchester City won the Champions League and West Ham won the Conference, but this season, just when UEFA awards the two best countries in the rankingannual with an extra place in the Champions League, the Premier teams have collapsed in Europe; For the first time in the last eight seasons they were not seen in the semifinals of the Champions League or the Europa League.
Manchester United and Newcastle closed the classification in their group of the maximum competition and could not even rejoin in the second. Arsenal and Manchester City advanced to the quarterfinals. Liverpool, West Ham and Brighton, who started among the Europa League favorites, also failed to reach the semifinals. The elimination of Aston Villa in Piraeus confirmed a debacle that already had consequences: England, contrary to what could await at the start of the season, will not have five representatives in the Champions League. Neither does Spain, which would have achieved that award between 2012 and 2022. Italy and Germany once again rule as if everything had returned to the 80s or 90s.
The complaints in England are directed towards the calendars, but there is also a certain cultural component, nuanced by the massive arrival of foreign coaches and players, which undervalues European competitions that are not the Champions League. Pep Guardiola complained bitterly that in the week preceding Manchester City’s visit to the Bernabéu he had to play two league games in the previous six days while Real Madrid rested. “In France, PSG does not play in the quarterfinals,” lamented the Catalan coach. Accumulating match dates in England is common in all campaigns and even more so if the teams compete in several competitions. “Winning so often is not easy and we are a team in the process of development,” coach Unai Emery apologized after Villa’s elimination against Olympiacos. The Birmingham club has just reached an agreement with a new investor to strengthen itself even further. The money is flowing and it does not seem likely that the English fiasco will become a trend, but what is evident is that other Leagues are recovering and returning to compete at the highest European level. This is the case of Italy, where the middle class has raised the level; just surpassed in the rankingof the last five campaigns (the one that grants tickets in the overall continental competitions) to Spain and for the first time since 2003 it leads the annual classification. That year, Milan, after eliminating Inter in the semifinals, and Juventus met in the Champions League final. And Lazio reached the gates of the final in the defunct UEFA Cup.
The rankingsThey are made up through a complex scoring system that very slightly bonuses participation in the Champions League compared to the other two European competitions. But in England the account they make is different: a year ago West Ham barely received 22 million in prizes after the entire journey that led them to lift the Conference, a fortune for many but pocket change for a team from the middle class of the Premier .
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