European football transfer spending over the past two decades has exploded from previous years, with a number of top ‘super-clubs’ surpassing the £ 1billion mark

Many won’t be surprised to find that the Premier League has been home to six of the top-spending clubs since the turn of the century.

The English league has long been the most powerful when it comes to flexing its financial muscles, simply because they have so many clubs capable of doing so.

While La Liga and Serie A have two or three at most, Ligue 1 and Bundesliga even fewer – the fact that the Premier League is the most watched division in the world has at least helped to contribute to the astronomical spending of some. clubs. Powerful.

Little of guesswork as to which two outfits come first and second, with Chelsea sitting fairly at the top – spending £ 2.15bn since the 2000/01 season.

HAVE YOUR WORD TO SAY! Is Premier League Wealth Good For The Game? Comments below

The Blues were the first Premier League club to reap the rewards of a water-rich sole proprietor in the form of Roman Abramovich, who pumped money into the west London-based squad following its takeover in 2003.

Since his arrival huge transfer fees have become the norm – the Blues broke the transfer record just recently last summer after paying Inter Milan £ 98million to bring Romelu Lukaku back to Stamford Bridge .

Chelsea are closely followed by Manchester City in terms of spending, with the five-time Premier League winners spending £ 1.9bn, the majority of which is believed to have been after 2008 after Sheikh Mansour took control.

Much like Chelsea, City also broke their club transfer record in the just-vanished window, with Jack Grealish becoming Britain’s first £ 100million player as Pep Guardiola lured him to the Aston Etihad Villa.

The third and fourth places are occupied by the two main Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona, ​​both of whom have shelled out € 2.2 billion over the past 21 years, although the latter are now arguably paying the price of their financial mismanagement.

After paying too much for the players who failed to reach the grade, Barcelona aim to take a different approach with Xavi now at the helm, despite making Ferran Torres his first signing at Barca for 55million. ‘euros.

The first Serie A representative comes in fifth, with Juventus spending € 2.1bn, placing them just ahead of Manchester United, who have amassed £ 1.67bn.

The Red Devils spent more than £ 135million last summer alone after luring Jadon Sancho, Raphael Varane and Cristiano Ronaldo to Old Trafford.

Surprisingly, Inter Milan and Paris Saint-Germain are in seventh place in terms of spending with 1.7 billion euros, despite their current financial situations incredibly contrasting.

Inter were forced to sell Lukaku this summer due to such a perilous economic situation, while PSG can comfortably pay the salaries of Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe and Neymar to name just three of their star roster.

PSG still hold the record for the most expensive transfer fees of all time, when they lured Neymar to the French capital for € 222million.

Liverpool come ninth, despite the perception the Reds are reluctant to spend, shelling out £ 1.3bn, with center-back Virgil van Dijk signing a club record for £ 76m.

AC Milan and Atletico Madrid have spent € 1.5bn, while North London rivals Arsenal and Tottenham are also at the same level in terms of transfer spending – £ 1.1bn in the over the past 21 years.

Despite having had contrasting decades in terms of honors won, AS Roma actually spent more than German giants Bayern Munich, with Italians’ total spending amounting to € 1.4 billion, against 1.1 billion euros for Bayern.