Money spent by top European clubs

Former Scotland captain and Liverpool legend Gary McAllister has been left astonished by the astronomical sums of money being spent by top clubs to sign players and wondered where it would all end.

The recently-concluded summer transfer window, quite literally smashed records, with French Ligue 1 club Paris Saint Germain splashing the cash to sign Brazilian ace Neymar for a world-record sum. The transfer window was littered with many other big deals with Barcelona signing Paulinho and Ousmane Dembele for huge figures.

Fifa, the world governing body said on Thursday that the close-season transfer window saw $4.71 billion (3.96 billion euros) spent worldwide, over three quarters of which were from the top five European leagues.

"Global spending reached $4.71 billion, meaning clubs spent almost as much during those three months as they had in the whole of 2016 ($4.79 billion)," Fifa said in a statement on Thursday.

And McAllister, who capped 59 times for Scotland and who won the UEFA Cup, UEFA Super Cup, the FA Cup, Football League Cup and the FA Charity Shield with Liverpool, said that the amounts spent were crazy but added that it isn't the players' fault.

"The question people ask me 'do you wish you were playing now?' Sometimes I think yeah because the money around the game is just incredible. For me, just prior to the transfer window closing was the number of players moving for 30, 40, 50 million, I didn't even know who they were. It is not even sort of well-known players. So, it is mind-boggling. Where's it going to stop? I don't know. It is market forces, isn't it? It is not the players' fault. How long can it be maintained.198 million, 250,000 pounds a week. That's crazy," McAllister told the Khaleej Times in an interview on Thursday.

McAllister was in Dubai to take part in the DSA Open golf tournament at Emirates Golf Club, part of the Swing Against Cancer Golf Series being run by Worldwide Golf and Sixteen10 which is raising money for Friends of Cancer Patients and Pink Caravan as well as raising awareness to help fight one of the world's deadliest diseases.

The 52-year-old was also quite vocal about the transfer window shutting at the same time across Europe after the Philippe Coutinho saga rumbled on during the summer. Coutinho was the subject of three bids from FC Barcelona and despite the player handing in a transfer request, The Reds didn't let him join the Catalans. Coutinho signed a new five-year contract in January that will see him at Anfield until 2022.

"I do think that all the Leagues in Europe should start and finish at the same time. The fact that some finishing and starting and stalling, I don't really believe in that. If you going to do it, do it together. I would rather see it close before the season rather than get into three or four games and not knowing if you are going to lose your star player. It is difficult for coaches and managers to get a settled squad until that window closes. So, I would move it back to the start of the season," he said.

"Coutinho has signed a five-year contract and the club promised the fans that they didn't have to sell and wouldn't sell and they stood by that. And we have a player back at the club who is a wonderful player. He's a player of interest to Barcelona, he's obviously a big favourite of the fans, he's a popular guy in the dressing room and hopefully he will be refocused and ready and kick on again," added McAllister.

McAllister also said it was still a tad too early in the season to pick a clear favourite for the English Premier League title but did add that the five English clubs will do well in the Champions League.

"I look at the top five, top six as one outstanding team that is going to maybe win the Premier League, go well into the Champions League. I think they are all well equipped to do well. The English teams this year, I think there is no excuse and all of them should progress through the group stages and get to the last 16 and then you can get lucky with the draw. But to pick one in the Premier League, I can't. The season is too short, we have not played enough games for me to say. So, I would say Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, (Tottenham) Spurs. I think they all have a chance of doing well," said McAllister, who also played for Leicester City, Leeds United and Coventry City.

Source: Khaleej Times