The old adage used to be that English players came at a premium. Now that appears to simply apply to a player already in the Premier League. As English football set a host of new records for spending in the summer window, the average spend on a player signed from another Premier League club was £39.4m - almost double the £20.2m spent on those arriving from abroad.
Kieran Maguire, professor of football finance at the University of Liverpool, calls it "a Premier League tax". It is part a growing trend which has seen Premier League teams become increasingly comfortable with selling to each other, even rivals. While more total spending is done with clubs outside of England, the proportion of big-money domestic deals is now outstripping overseas transfers.
Only the European elite can now compete with Premier League clubs, and player profits are key when it comes to recycling money to keep in line with the financial rules. Spending patterns for Premier League clubs are not just about the fee, but who the clubs are choosing to do business with. Take a look at the high-value deals, worth £40m or more, which have doubled this summer from two years ago.
In 2024-25 there were 13 such deals, this summer there were 27. More striking is the breakdown of these transfers. Two years ago, there were seven transfers worth £40m or more done with teams on the continent.
Only six were completed between Premier League clubs. This summer there were nine deals worth £40m or more with European clubs. But between clubs in England it has trebled, from six to 18.
The total spend across all domestic transfers has more than doubled, too. Maguire told BBC Sport that one reason is English clubs now scout players from abroad so extensively that they are signed much earlier, and made into Premier League players. "We've got a new tranche of clubs, sort of the the algorithm kids, who are recruiting from the international markets," Maguire said.
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