Premier League transfer window:"A few clubs have cost control challenges"
CGTN Europe interviewed Kieran Maguire, An expert in football finance at the University of Liverpool
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00:00Welcome back. The English Premier League has spent around $2.4 billion, and counting, as the deadline for transfers approaches at 10pm local time.
00:12Yeah, this figure is over 10% lower than a year ago, but the Premier League still leads the amount spent in Europe's big five domestic leagues.
00:20Earlier we spoke with expert in football finance at the University of Liverpool, Kieran Maguire.
00:26I think what we've seen in the Premier League is that a few clubs have had cost control challenges, which has meant that they tended to be a little bit more prudent.
00:35Secondly, the money coming into the Premier League from the Saudi Pro League, which was very significant last year, and then allowed Premier League clubs to spend themselves, that's failed to materialise.
00:48And thirdly, at the very elite end of the Premier League, if we take a look at the top three clubs in the shape of Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool, there's very few players that can actually increase the quality of those teams.
01:02So therefore, the clubs have decided not to spend because they feel it will be money wasted rather than invested.
01:09Yeah, you mentioned some clubs there. Which clubs are doing good business, would you say, and which ones are struggling?
01:16Well, I think the clubs that have struggled are the ones who have been subject to sanctions over the course of the last 12 months.
01:23So we've got Everton there, for example. We've also seen Newcastle United, who had to sell players at the end of last season in order to make sure that they didn't breach the rules.
01:33They've been very cautious as well. At the other end of the scale, bizarrely, Brighton, who are a team who people rarely talk about.
01:42They are the second highest spenders in the whole of Europe this summer.
01:47And this is on the back of selling some of their players in the last two years, which has given them substantial resources, which they've now decided to reinvest by buying players this summer.
01:58Yeah, and you mentioned some of these restrictions. I mean, are they really making the Premier League a fair playing field?
02:08No, the rules were never intended to create a level playing field.
02:12I think some of the more cynical observers take the view that it actually reinforces the existing status quo,
02:20because it means that if you've got an aspiration or an ambitious owner who wants to invest their own money into the football club, that is actually capped.
02:29And that's prevented clubs such as Newcastle United, which are owned by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund,
02:36Aston Villa, who's got two billionaire owners, all of whom want to spend as much as they choose.
02:42They're unable to catch up with the existing elite clubs.
02:47And also some other challenges, just to throw into the mix, are streaming platforms, aren't they?
02:53You sort of touched on this, but in terms of challenges, are they taking away money from the Premier League? Will things be harder?
03:00Well, if we take a look at the Premier League's own TV deal, that has flatlined now domestically for around about 12 years, taking us through to the end of this decade.
03:10The Premier League is still doing very well on a global basis and is attracting international and overseas broadcasters to consume the product.
03:20But as far as the streamers are concerned, the attempt to get Amazon Prime involved with the Premier League was an experiment,
03:29which I think it's fair to say has not been an overall success.
03:33And now we are back to using traditional broadcasters.
03:36I think the big fear in terms of broadcast revenues is that we are seeing an increased use of pirated products,
03:44which means that the money is not going to the broadcasters and therefore they're not willing to pay any more money to the Premier League for its rights.