After my last blog looking into the transfer spending across the nPower Championship I thought I'd look at the spending across the Football League, and whether it has a similar or different patter. What I found was surprising and encouraging for Portsmouth whom I support going down into the third tier of the league pyramid.
From the findings you could almost call the Championship the 'mini Premier-League' as they spend more money on transfers then League One, League Two and the Blue Square Premier combined!
So first up is the Championship which I did last time, here is the graph;
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It may not been that expensive in this day and age of high spending Premier League clubs, but it shows how fiercely competitive the Championship is, in that investment is the only way of surviving, whether that may be beyond the financial means of the club or not.
Middlesbrough are the frugal club of the division by spending nothing on players, choosing to stick with the squad they already have, which saw them finish just out of the play-offs in 7th.
Portsmouth were one of the highest spenders and finished 22nd and were relegated due to a 10 points deduction after going into relegation in February 2012.
Leicester were the biggest spenders in the league with a whopping £15.78m almost 3 times more than 2nd place Southampton and 10 times more than title winners Reading. The Foxes finished the season top mid-table and hoping for a better season next year, after beginning as title favourites.
Transfer Spend;
Barnsley- £1.14m
Birmingham City- £500k
Blackpool- £660k
Brighton & Hove Albion- £5.32m
Bristol City- £350k
Burnley- £1.65m
Cardiff- £1.94m
Coventry- £0.48m
Crystal Palace- £590k
Derby- £3.02m
Doncaster Rovers- £120k
Hull- £1.42m
Ipswich Town- £2.89m
Leeds United- £810k
Leicester City- £15.78m
Middlesbrough- £0
Millwall- £1.21m
Nottingham Forest- £1.08m
Peterborough- £1.75m
Portsmouth- £4.23m
Reading- £1.75m
Southampton- £4.5m
Watford- £1.04m
West Ham- £10.85m
League One
Onto League One which this year has been crammed full of some big clubs that have fallen from grace, such as Charlton, Sheffield United/Wednesday and Preston North End, all vying to try get promoted back to the Championship. Surely then they are the biggest spenders? Not necessarily, it's actually surprising which teams ended up more eager to splash the cash and those being frugal. With some clubs being relegated they sold more than they spent.
The chart is a bit different because the place where I make my graphs wouldn't accept the data, so had to change;
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It is very different to the Championship graph, the maximum data number entry has gone from £20m to only £2m, the fact that the transfer spend is ten times less than the Championship shows how the financial spending is far smaller in the third tier.
There are some big spenders though, only two teams have gone over the £1m mark which is Huddersfield and Bournemouth, the latter was taken over by a Russian businessman in mid-season and purchased expensive players to strengthen the squad and avoid relegation.
It is surprising the amount of teams who have spent nothing, they still brought in players, but on free transfers and loans. I was excited to hear this as well, as Portsmouth is relegated to this league it shows promise that we could assemble a squad without having to break the bank at the same rate as a Championship squad, it could be done for a frugal price.
League One Transfer Spend:
AFC Bournemouth- £1.35m
Brentford- £0
Bury £50k
Carlisle- £0
Charlton Athletic- £800k
Exeter- £0
Hartlepool- £0
Huddersfield- £1.84m
Leyton Orient- £0
Milton Keynes Dons- £0
Notts County- £0
Oldham- £0
Preston North End- £150k
Rochdale- £0
Scunthorpe- £0
Sheffield United- £150k
Sheffield Wednesday- £560k
Stevenage- £0
Tranmere- £0
Walsall- £0
Wycombe- £0
Yeovil- £0
League Two
League Two is similar to League One in the respect of a lot of clubs utilising the free transfer market to bolster their squads over the transfer markets. There were a few clubs that did spend money but it wasn't much, but that is the smaller financial side of the fourth tier of the Football League. A lot of clubs that fall into this league find it hard to move out of it, or usually yo-yo between league's one and two.
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Again the data entry is slightly different with the highest transfer spend being £1m, half of what League One was and twenty times less than the Championship graph. The spending is more prevalent in this league but is much smaller in value. There are big spenders in this league, with Gillingham being the most prevalent, looking for promotion, same as Swindon Town. Crawley Town were big-spenders in their first season in the Football League as they were in the non-league, spending £220k on players, but they did make a large earning on Tyrone Barnett (£1.1m from Peterborough)
Transfer Spend:
Accrington Stanely- £0
AFC Wimbledon- £70k
Aldershot- £0
Barnet- £0
Bradford- £0
Bristol City- £0
Burton- £20k
Cheltenham- £80k
Crawley- £220k
Crewe- £0
Dagenham & Redbridge- £0
Gillingham £490k
Hereford- £0
Macclesfield- £60k
Morecambe- £30k
Northampton- £0
Oxford- £0
Plymouth- £40k
Port Vale- £0
Rotherham- £140k
Shrewsbury- £0
Southend- £240k
Swindon Town- £280k
Torquay- £50k
Looking at the graphs collectively it shows how financially different the leagues are, especially the void between League One and the Championship. The TV money is different in that you get a bigger share of it, but apart from that there are no other financial benefits. The nPower Championship overall spent a whopping £63.08m on transfers during the 11/12 season, if you then compare this to League One which is £4.75m is thirteen times less than the Championship spending. League Two spent £1.72m on transfers in 11/12 season which is almost equivalent to one player that a club paid for in the Championship!
Overall League Two spent 37 times less than the Championship, a massive difference, the Premier League is vastly different, it's an eye watering number, £563m was spent (that is known) on players in the 11/12 transfer windows, here is a graph showing retrospectively the spending across the leagues:
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Overall Transfer Spending:
Premier League- £562m
Championship- £63.08m
League One- £4.75m
League Two- £1.72m
The Championship spent nine times less than the Premier League.
League One spent 118 times less than the Premier League
League Two an eye watering spent 326 times less than the Premier League
It shows how much the leagues are getting further and further financially smaller than the Premier League, many clubs have left the league and fallen from grace, going through administration, once such team Bradford is an example. The club has been recently looking into leaving their ground because it's too big for their current attendance which is a remnant from their Premier League days.
Hope you've enjoyed this review, sorry if I haven't gone into too much detail, but didn't want to waffle on too much about this subject. Felt it needed touching upon and explained simply.
Dave
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