Over the past three years, Premier League clubs have spent over $ 1 billion on agent fees.

Coronavirus pandemic has brought down transfer fees around the world, with Premier League clubs spending on transfer fees decreases from about $ 320 million in January 2020 to less than $ 100 million in January.

But despite the impact of COVID-19 on the football industry, agent fees have maintained their unstoppable increase, rising from around $ 240 million annually in 2016 to over $ 376 million between February 2020 and February 2021.

In addition to arranging transfers, intermediaries are involved in player registrations, contract cancellations, loan movements and other types of negotiations, so while the transfer market has been calm, the number of free transfers, contract negotiations and loans kept the agents busy.

FA data, which runs from February to February, shows that total fees have increased in each of the past five years and that some clubs are spending enough on agent fees each year to pay a transfer fee. new player.

Chelsea, which has spent just under $ 50 million in the past year, and around $ 190 million in total over the past five years, is the biggest spender on agent fees. This comes despite a transfer ban in the middle of this period.

When it comes to agent fees, rather than the “big six” of the best clubs, there is a very clear “big four”. Manchester City spent the second most in agent fees last year, followed by Manchester United and Liverpool. But over the past five years, Liverpool have been the second-biggest spenders, spending almost as much as Chelsea. The two Manchester clubs have also spent more than $ 150million on agent fees during this period.

But the second biggest spender wasn’t Arsenal or Tottenham Hotspur, it was Everton, who spent around $ 93 million on agent fees during that five-year period. Arsenal were the sixth-biggest spenders, while Tottenham Hotspur, perhaps due to their relative lack of transfer activity, were ninth, behind Leicester City and West Ham United.

Given these large sums passed on to agents, it may not come as a surprise that the UK tax authorities are reassessing interim payments are taxed, taking a closer look at payments so that none of those millions of potentially taxable income goes through the net.

Going deeper into the spending chart, Newcastle United, who are known to count pennies under Mike Ashley ownership, were surprisingly the tenth biggest spender on agent fees with around $ 65million in the past five. seasons.

Wolverhampton Wanderers spent the eighth most last year and over $ 38million in the past three seasons, which is perhaps not surprising given their ties to Jorge Mendes and his agency Gestifute. Burnley and West Bromwich Albion were the Premier League’s lowest spenders last season.

But while there’s a lot of attention on super agents like Mino Raiola, who seems to be fly around europe Right now, trying to get a nine-figure transfer fee for Erling Haaland, once you start cutting down the divisions, the huge agent fees quickly go away.

Championship clubs spent around $ 2.3 million on average on their finder’s fees last year. And the whole of League One put together spent less on finder’s fees than Burnley, with Gillingham apparently spending nothing at all on such fees.