Column: EPL teams banking on another season of dollars, not sense
It used to be the most valuable guy on a soccer team wore a uniform and played in the games. Not anymore.
At least not in the English Premier League, which kicks off a new season on Aug. 13. Big-money deals have become so prolific, the key person in many EPL organizations may now be the accountant who keeps track of it all.
If Manchester United’s $146-million transfer for French midfielder Paul Pogba gets done, the team, which already had the most expensive player in the EPL in Wayne Rooney, will have spent nearly $240 million on four others in the last two months. Chelsea spent $85 million on forward Michy Batshuayi and midfielder N’Golo Kante. Arsenal spent $46 million on midfielder Granit Xhaka.
By the time the summer transfer window closes at the end of the month the 20 EPL clubs together are sure to shatter the record of $1.15 billion they spent last year. But then breaking that record has been an annual tradition for some time.
What’s changed this summer is the vast amount of money the league is taking in and the speed and carelessness in which its teams give it away.
Manchester United head Jose Mourinho – one of eight new coaches in the EPL this season -- committed nearly $40 million for Eric Bailly, a 22-year-old defender who cost Spain’s Villarreal less than $6.5 million just 18 months ago. Even tiny Bournemouth, nearly relegated last season, has kept its bankers busy, spending more than $40 million in the early transfer market.
Funding all that spending is the league’s new $12-billion TV agreement, which begins this season. The value of the three-year deal marks a 50% increase from the old one and teams are quickly funneling that money to the players.
“The EPL has a long history of spending all it earns,” said British economist Stefan Szymanski, a professor of sports management at the University of Michigan and co-author of “Soccernomics.”
“What we are seeing is in line with the long-term trend. Over the last half-century EPL revenue has risen about 50-fold after adjusting for inflation. So have player wages.”
Leicester City offered a different model last year when it won the EPL title with a payroll of $64 million. Manchester City spent more than that on Kevin De Bruyne alone.
But rather than inspiring teams to rethink their approach, Leicester City’s success inspired them to spend even more.
“It has been a sort of a wakeup call to the giants who all, collectively, took their eye off the ball last season. And their owners and fans won’t let them do that again,” said Arlo White, the lead play-by-play man on NBC’s EPL broadcasts. “The checkbooks are being opened, the cash is being wielded.”
So it was no surprise when the defending champions prepared to break with their frugal ways. After losing midfielder motor Kante to Chelsea, Leicester City reportedly offered Watford nearly $40 million for striker Troy Deeney. Stunningly the deal was turned down so last month the Foxes paid a club-record $21-million transfer fee for CSKA Moscow’s Nigerian forward Ahmed Musa.
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What impact all that spending will have on the standings remains to be seen. But clearly several teams are again betting heavily that a big-name manager with a big payroll will earn it a title.
At Manchester United, Mourinho, sacked last season less than a year after guiding Chelsea to a title, has quickly put his mark on his new team. In addition to three rich transfer deals -- the richest being the record offer to Italy’s Juventus’ for Pogba, which is expected to finalized this week -- Manchester United also landed former Paris Saint-Germain star Zlatan Ibrahimovic as a free agent and informed World Cup star Bastian Schweinsteiger and eight others -- including Adnan Januzaj and Andreas Pereira -- that they don’t have a future with the club.
Across town at Manchester City, new coach Pep Guardiola, fresh off a third straight Bundesliga title at Bayern Munich, is also heading a deep-pocketed team with huge expectations. He recently signed four high-priced transfers in Germans Leroy Sane ($48 million) and Ilkay Gundogan ($26 million), Brazilian winger Gabriel Jesus ($35 million) and Spanish forward Nolito ($18.2 million).
Liverpool made its coaching change early last season, replacing the dour Brendan Rodgers with the energetic Juergen Klopp, who said he planned to build his team rather than buying one.
Yet that didn’t stop Liverpool from spending $40 million to lure Senegalese winger Sadio Mane away from Southampton and another $32 million on Newcastle midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum. Klopp also let 18 players, including club legend Martin Skrtel, go.
But the big money doesn’t only draw top players to England. Four coaches with a Champions League final on their resumes have also been welcomed to new teams in the top two levels of English soccer in the last nine months. And that doesn’t include new Chelsea boss Antonio Conte, the former Italian national team coach who won eight Serie A titles as a player and manager.
Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger, the dean of EPL coaches after 20 seasons in North London, said the star power on the sidelines will add to the league’s appeal.
“It’s great because it’s a little bit of world championship of managers as well,” he said. “All the best managers come to England to make our life even more difficult. And that’s what you want.
“You want the Premier League to more interesting. And the more you have quality managers, the more it could be interesting.”
Especially since those managers have lots of money to spend.
kevin.baxter@latimes.com
Twitter: @kbaxter11
