City’s £1.2bn transfer spree sent fees across 46 clubs during rule-breaking era
City’s transfer money reached clubs across Europe
Manchester City spent about £1.2bn on players between summer 2009 and winter 2018, according to the BBC’s analysis of the club’s senior-player transfers. The analysis says City’s spending in that period was the highest of any club, with around £900m in net spend. The independent commission that found City guilty of financial-rule breaches concluded that the club had inflated its accounts by more than £900m.
The transfer-fee trail ran to 46 clubs in 19 national league systems. English Premier League clubs received the largest share—just over a quarter of City’s total transfer outlay. City signed players from eight Premier League clubs and eight La Liga clubs; two Championship deals accounted for a combined £13m. The figures concern transfer fees and exclude free transfers, loans and academy graduates, while other costs such as agents’ fees and wages are not captured in the club-to-club totals.
Big fees did not guarantee a lasting boost
The article argues that City’s purchasing power affected the wider transfer market, helping push fees and wages higher. But a large payment was no guarantee that a selling club would prosper. Wolfsburg signed Julian Draxler for roughly half the fee they received for Kevin De Bruyne in 2016, but later fell from second to eighth in the Bundesliga and came close to relegation in the following two seasons.
Monaco also struggled after selling Benjamin Mendy and Bernardo Silva to City in the same summer. Their principal replacements, Terence Kongolo and Keita Balde, did not deliver lasting success, and the club went from winning Ligue 1 and reaching the Champions League semi-finals to coming close to relegation within two years. Arsenal, the club from which City signed the most players in the period—four—did not mount a serious Premier League title challenge during those years.
Sell-on clauses spread the proceeds further
Some clubs benefited without selling directly to City. Queens Park Rangers reportedly received about £9m through a sell-on clause when Raheem Sterling moved from Liverpool to City in 2015. Barnsley collected about £7m from Everton’s fee for John Stones in 2016, while Everton passed roughly £2.5m to Wolves after Joleon Lescott’s 2009 move to Manchester City.
Those sums were substantial for the clubs involved, but did not ensure sustained progress: QPR did not return to the Premier League, while Barnsley dropped from the Championship to League One after two seasons. The BBC notes that tracing the ultimate impact of City’s spending is impossible to do conclusively: its direct and indirect consequences became intertwined with years of subsequent activity across football.