" Rest of Europe feeder clubs to the Premier League? "

"The other leagues can't become feeder leagues to the Premier League, but right now that's how it looks."

BBC Sport


The Premier League is "almost bankrolling" European football, with La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 in danger of becoming "feeder leagues", says French journalist Julien Laurens.

Premier League clubs spent £815m during the January transfer window.

That is over four times the combined £198m in Spain, Italy, Germany and France.

"Right now the only league where you can afford anyone is the Premier League," said Laurens.

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live's Euro Leagues podcast, the French football expert added: "Bournemouth have the capability of spending £60m or £70m in one transfer window in January. The other leagues can't become feeder leagues to the Premier League, but right now that's how it looks.

"People that run French clubs, they're relying on English clubs to spend £20m or £30m to sign one of their players. If you have a young player that's not too bad in Ligue 1 someone from England can say 'he might be good, here's £40m'.

"The Premier League is almost bankrolling European football.

"If English clubs were only spending money buying players in the Premier League a lot of [French] clubs would be thinking 'oh, no, we need that money'.

"Fifa and Uefa have to look into it. I don't know if you could limit the spending to £100m or £150m [per club], I don't know if that's possible."

The British transfer record was smashed on deadline day with Chelsea signing Benfica's Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernandez for 121m euros (£107m), with the Blues spending about £288m in January alone.

"It's incredible the country that protested the most against the Super League is [effectively] the Super League," added James Horncastle, an expert on German football.

"You can't criticise the Premier League for being the best commercially run league in the world. But It saddens me that Europe has just become development leagues for Premier League teams."

Horncastle felt the Premier League clubs will have a problem getting rid of their unwanted players, as nobody else would be able to afford the transfer fees or cover their wages.

He added: "Premier League clubs are so much richer than the others. They sign these players for huge amounts, give them 'reasonable' wages for Chelsea, but those wages are super, super expensive compared to the European clubs, so it's difficult to sell or loan them into Europe.

"When Manchester City were selling Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko they sold them to Arsenal, Raheem Sterling they sold to Chelsea.

"European clubs can't afford these players in the Premier League, even those sitting on the bench. What they earn is too expensive for German teams."

Figures from financial services company Deloitte say the spending by English top-flight clubs accounted for 79% of the total across Europe's 'big five' football leagues.

"In the last five years £1bn went from England to France, £1bn from England to Germany," said Belgian football journalist Kristof Terreur.

"The Belgian league likes to sell their players to English clubs.

"The Belgian clubs all made a loss of 200m euros in the last accounting period, then the Premier League comes along and they can sell their players - the Premier League is saving them.

"It is a pretty desperate situation in Europe."

President of La Liga, Javier Tebas, has said this:

"We read, the "strength" of the Premier League, but it is a competition based on millionaire losses of the clubs, (their ordinary income is not enough for them) most of the clubs are financially doped."

Corporate Director of La Liga, Javier Gomez added:


"In LaLiga what we are looking for is that clubs spend what they can generate autonomously. Shareholders are allowed to support within certain limits," said Gomez.

"In the Premier League it is the opposite. Until June 2021, the Premiership and the Championship had lost 3000 million euros ($3.28 billion), the Spanish LaLiga lost 250 million euros. In the same period, the Premier League and Championship shareholders put in 3500 million euros, in Spain they put in 450 million euros.

"They are doping the clubs, they are injecting money that is not generated by the clubs. This puts the viability of a club at risk when this shareholder leaves. In our opinion, this is cheating because it drags down the rest of the leagues."

Gomez says that La Liga will "fight" for UEFA to restrict shareholders and sanction clubs no matter what league or country they are from.

Spain moaning but look at Barca and RM spending over the years. PSG were trying to go about buying everyone but it's UK fault.!!!
Don't worry as the bubble will burst soon enough.

As an individual who has spent a lot of years working abroad the only football country I have heard talked about is the UK League, dare I say English league.

I don't recall any of my friends abroad talking about Bayern Munich, Ajax, Real Madrid or Barcelona etc etc. It was all English clubs.

Spain moaning but look at Barca and RM spending over the years. PSG were trying to go about buying everyone but it's UK fault.!!!
Don't worry as the bubble will burst soon enough.

What will cause the bubble to burst?

The monies been thrown around Jock it cannae go on indefinitely.

I believe Chelsea have spent something like £,600M+ this season alone, how that works with FFP is a mystery to me. But I agree with the article, it's a billionaires plaything where money is of almost no consequence. It must have a detrimental effect on the English league too you'd have thought at a national level, with foreign players making up the majority of the elite clubs squads. And to think the European elite clubs wanted a separate superleague, they're all as bad as FIFA in my eyes, no real concern about the fans.

The monies been thrown around Jock it cannae go on indefinitely.

Don’t know the numbers re subscription earnings for Sky BT ect but I’ve wondered if the big bucks comes from gambling ?