‘Which competition is number one in the world?’ Premier League answer FIFA’s billion dollar question

FIFA have released their figures for international transfer spending this summer – and the Premier League is still top dog.

World football’s governing body revealed that an all-time high $7.36bn (£5.89bn) was spent on deals involving players moving between leagues in different countries.

Just over 25% of that outlay – $1.98bn (£1.58bn) – came from English clubs, who signed 449 players from non-English leagues between them.

To put into some context just how extraordinary the summer expenditure from England (and primarily the Premier League) was, even the Saudi Pro League – whose push to tempt a plethora of big names from Europe to the Middle East – coughed up less than half that amount.