Liverpool fronts record spending by English clubs as player power takes hold in transfer window

English soccer — and Liverpool, in particular — flexed its financial muscles in unprecedented fashion in a summer transfer window that highlighted the growing imbalance in the European game as well as the effect player power can have in securing a move.

Here’s what we learned from the last two months in the transfer market:

English dominance

The raw facts are that the 20 clubs in the Premier League — fueled by unrivaled spending power because of the competition’s huge domestic and international broadcasting deals — splashed out a record total of $4 billion on players in the summer window. That outlay is more than Europe’s other four top leagues — Spain, Italy, Germany, France — combined.

The previous single-window record spend was 2.36 billion pounds (now $3.2 billion) in 2023.

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