Il January marketa record-breaking session for world football which effectively put an end to the long wave of Covid, has in Europe, and specifically in Premier Leagueits center of gravity. With Italy bringing up the rear. This is what emerges from the report “International Tansfer Snapshot“, published by Fifa and which converts the sensations that emerged in the last market window into numbers: Italian football is in serious decline, English football is increasingly dominant. “Overall, the data from the window that has just closed indicate that the transfer market is clearly growing” is the incipit of the Fifa report before starting to crunch the numbers: the increase in international transfers was 14.4%, as well as a 49.4% increase in the amount spent on transfers in men’s professional football compared to the same window in 2022. A total of 4,387 transfers completed in January 2023, a new all-time high: the dataset includes leagues that consider the January window a repair market, as happens in Europe, but also the countries where the one just ended is the main moment for the transfer campaign, as happens in the southern hemisphere.
January market, record session
Comparing the growth in the number of transfers with that of the volume of business, it can be seen that the amount of business has grown considerably. It is therefore a question of record transfers, such as those of Enzo Fernandez e Mudryk al Chelseabut also of minor affairs such as the passage of Traore al Bournemouth for 30 million euros from Sassuolo. In total, transfer fees of $1.57 billion have been agreed between clubs, with the majority of this money (89.7%) being spent by European clubs. This represents a dramatic increase of 49.4% over the total outlay in January 2022 and even surpasses the previous record of $1.34 billion set in January 2018. Numbers heralding the start of the post-Covid recovery, signs of recovery started in 2022 and became increasingly clear after the market close. The programming of the World Cup in Qatar in November and December also had an impact, an event that had never occurred in the history of football and which was followed by the usual post-event waltz, moved by interest and by the emotions and reactions of the moment. Across all global leagues, English clubs dominated the scene with an outlay of $898.6m, an increase of more than 150% on January 2022 and represented a new record, beating the outlay by just over 500 million dollars, also from the Premier League, which was set in 2018. Brazil, however, completed the largest number of incoming (301) and outgoing (280) transfers, thanks to the centrality of the winter session: not a repair market but team building.
Serie A, the great cold of the transfer market: 32 million invested and reinforcements only in the queue. Government squeeze on capital gains
by Giulio Cardone and Franco Vanni
Italy chases the other leagues
The transfer of Zaniolo al Galatasaray best describes the moment of Italian football. It was a market sunk by the economic and structural problems of our movement, in which even disastrous championships such as the Ukrainian one managed to carve out a space for themselves on the global scene, albeit due to the sale of some players. A sign that despite the war and the enormous economic difficulties, the player base in Ukraine is more attractive than the Italian one. There were 280 total deals concluded in A league76 less than the 356 in 2022. Also considering the sale of Zaniolo, only 31 million were spent in Serie A compared to 83 collected: considering the average price of 2.2 million, our league is at 14 th place worldwide for this January transfer market.
Football, 71,000 players have changed country for the ball. Spent 6.5 billion, half for the top 100 talents
by Emanuele Gamba
The recovery from Covid, the hunt for zero parameters
Looking at the numbers, we notice the impact of the pandemic on the world football market, naturally analyzing the January session. In 2020, when the world was still unaware of what was waiting for it, the numbers were in line with the current ones: 3,647 million dollars in turnover, 596 transfers. Numbers collapsed the following year, passing to 2,360 million and 401 transfers, before the partial recovery the following year more on the number of transfers (557) than on the turnover (3,277 million dollars). It is also curious to analyze the type of transfers: transfers for players at the end of the contract dominate, representing 62% of the deals, followed by loans (14.8%) and permanent loans (13.1%), the latter being the most onerous the need to pay money to the original company. The return on loans instead represents 10% of the total. Turnover mainly involving players aged between 18 and 23 (326 transfers for 1,134 million, 52.4% of deals and 72.4% of money circulated), followed by 24- 29 (246 transfers for 368 million). Also in women’s professional football, the number of transfers in January increased once again (+30.2% compared to January 2022) in a total of 341 transfers were completed. Total spending on transfer fees also continued to grow in women’s football by more than 50% compared to the same period in 2022, and reached a total of $774,300 in January 2023, underlining the impressive exponential growth of women’s football in the last years.