England’s transfer market may be doomed: "Clubs will disappear"

 One more summer, the Premier League is once again king of the transfer market. English clubs open their wallets and reinforce their squads, often at exorbitant prices. From LaLiga, whose financial philosophy is almost the complete opposite of England’s, there is a warning that a bubble is forming and could soon burst, dragging everyone down with it. “If the British government does not act, Premier League clubs will disappear,” Marta Alonso, a LaLiga executive, tells AS.

English football generates more revenue than any other league. According to the recent Deloitte Football Finance 2026 report, LaLiga generated $4.78 billion in revenue, while the Premier League approached $9.31 billion. That should mean, as Javier Tebas, head of the Spanish employers’ association, has repeatedly argued, that English clubs should spend no more than twice as much as Spanish clubs in the transfer market. That is not happening. While LaLiga’s spending in the top flight usually sits around $933 million, Premier League clubs spent $4.74 billion in the 2025-26 season. This summer, they have already reached $3.35 billion. “It’s wasteful,” Tebas insists.

The concern is that English clubs are sustaining that level of spending through a loss-making model. According to a LaLiga report, Premier League clubs recorded combined losses of $2.36 billion in 2024-25, with shareholders having to cover the shortfall. That does not happen in Spain, where capital increases are restricted and strict financial controls are designed to prevent the kind of losses that pushed Spanish football towards the brink a decade ago.

“This is a death sentence”

Alonso, deputy director of LaLiga’s corporate general management, explains the concern to AS: “The financial control the Premier has is what LaLiga had 15 years ago. Clubs do what they want during the season and only afterwards is it analysed. This, as Tebas says, is a death sentence and you cannot save the patient.”

The first issue she identifies is the way England regulates spending. “We start from the premise that their financial control has a fundamental flaw: it does not control the market price. Now, moreover, they have introduced a series of changes that in our view will not be successful. They have set a ratio of how much clubs can spend on squad wages relative to revenues. For those competing in UEFA competitions it is around 70%, but for others it rises to 80-90%.”

Alonso believes this could widen the financial gap within the league and increase the risk of insolvency. “The Premier allows them to spend more and record greater losses, which will increase the likelihood of the league breaking apart and of those clubs not competing in Europe ending up insolvent.”

Inflation increases in England’s Premier League

Alonso also warns that clubs could find ways to improve their financial figures through transfers and sponsorships. “In revenues there may be shareholder sponsorships that could be at market price or not. We are concerned that transfer profit will also be included in that revenue sum. They will generate inflation in the market. The more they sell and for higher fees, the better their squad-to-revenue ratio will look. That will push transfer prices higher and increase player trading.”

She believes the impact will not remain confined to England. “At the Premier level, if the market were only domestic they would kill each other, but there will be a spillover effect on other leagues.”

LaLiga points to the inflated prices being paid in England as evidence of the trend. Morgan Rogers, for example, reportedly cost Chelsea $161 million, a fee 53.33% above his Transfermarkt valuation. Mateus Fernandes is another case, with Tottenham paying a fee reportedly 98% above his valuation.

Alonso also raises the possibility of clubs effectively helping one another through inflated transfers. “This is what we call swaps. I buy this player from you for ten and you buy another from me for ten. Since it’s the same, they record €100 and €100 on their balance sheets. Everyone’s happy and they register a profit of €100. That already happened in Italy, which led to criminal charges because it distorts the market.”

She believes the consequences could simply be deferred. “If you buy a player at a very high price, that creates amortisation costs. If afterwards you want to sell him, it will mean a loss for the club. It’s bread for today and hunger for tomorrow. That’s why we understand it’s not a correct method for clubs to be sustainable. Remember that they lost two billion euros ($2.3bn) last season. What we are trying to do is get the Premier to correct that deviation because it is dragging us all down.”

“Not even sovereign wealth funds are buying Premier clubs”

LaLiga has been warning for years that the Premier League’s loss-making model is unsustainable. So far, however, the predicted collapse has not arrived. Alonso insists that does not mean the problem has disappeared.

“We have not seen those consequences yet, but we are convinced they will. If you look, there was a lot of club trading in the Premier League in recent years. An investor would come, the club would lose money, he would cover it, sell it to another investor and recover the investment. But in recent seasons, not even sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia are buying Premier clubs.”

She believes that could eventually force owners to stop funding their clubs. “Shareholders will reach a point where they have put in money and more money and will not be able to recoup the investment, because no one will come to buy the club. In the last two or three seasons there has been a halt in purchases of English clubs and this will mean owners will cut off funding.”

The warning is stark: “If clubs are not solvent and are not able to pay with the revenues they generate, there will be a collapse. The British Parliament has realised this. There have been warning signs with clubs relegated from the Premier to the Championship. When they drop to the second tier, shareholders lose interest and leave.”

That, Alonso believes, is where the real danger lies. “If a club is relegated to the second tier and the owner leaves, they will go bankrupt. At the fair play level, the impression from statements by the British government is that they will exhaust those losses and that sustainability to preserve the clubs. I believe those consequences will be corrected sooner if the British Parliament intervenes and regulates as it says it will. If it does not, clubs in the Premier League will disappear.”

The warning has been made. For now, though, English clubs continue to dominate the transfer market and spend at a level that remains far beyond their European rivals.