Boosted by investments from English clubs and in particular from Chelsea, which have been particularly spendthrift in recent weeks, the transfer window has exceeded its pre-Covid standards over the winter period, with spending $ 230 million higher than the previous record, which dated from January 2018 .
Football's world body noted in a statement that English clubs alone accounted for 57.3% of total global spending in January, amounting to $898.6m (835m approximately EUR).
Fifa has not presented a club-by-club report, but the fabulous recruitments of Chelsea for more than 300 million euros estimated this winter (Mykhailo Mudryk, Enzo Fernandez, Benoît Badiashile, Noni Madueke...) have necessarily inflated the England figures.
France is the second biggest spender nation, with 131.9 million dollars (122.5 M EUR) invested.
The number of deals also broke records for a winter window, with 4,387 international moves recorded in men's football.
Historic marks were also reached in women's football, with 341 transfers and 774,300 dollars spent (approximately 719,000 euros) in January, an increase of 58.7% compared to January 2022, previous record.
The explosion is even more telling in view of the figures for the winter transfer window of 2019, where only $54,000 had been spent on players.
In four seasons, the amounts have therefore been multiplied by 14, a few months before the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand (July 20 - August 20).
At the end of January, Fifa published its global report on transfers for the year 2022, observing a post-Covid rebound in the market with six billion euros in expenditure, including two billion for English clubs alone.
© 2023 AFP