By Nick Harris

31 January 2011

Spending by the 20 clubs of the Premier League has hit a record level for a January transfer window, with sportingintelligence calculating that they will have spent £223.47m collectively on the signings of permanent deals for players. This will rise slightly depending on add-ons in some deals.

This smashes the previous record of £170m set in the 2009 January window, and is more than seven times more than last January’s £30m low.

The record was dependent on the completions of the major deals for Fernando Torres (£50m, Liverpool to Chelsea, confirmed late on Monday night), Andy Carroll (£35m, Newcastle to Liverpool, ditto), as well as David Luiz (£21.3m, to Chelsea).

Tottenham and other clubs tried but apparently failed to land big-money signings before the window shut.

The record of 2009 has been obliterated in a curious two fingers of spending to Uefa’s financial fair play rules. Either the big clubs, principally Chelsea, know something the rest of us don’t about how Uefa intend to enforce (or not) the FFP rules, or else there is panic afoot.

The graphic below summarises this January against previous years, and represents the 2011 projected situation at 11pm on Monday 31 January.

Elsewhere, Chelsea have announced their latest massive annual losses, £70.9m for the 2009-10 financial year. In their annual game of putting a positive spin on terrible finances, they headlined the story on the website: ‘Chelsea becomes cash positive’.

A related feature can be found at the link here: ‘Chelsea – a history of rib-tickling excuses and risible claims over consistently losing oodles of Abramovich’s money‘.

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