On August 3rd 2017, Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior joined Paris St. Germain from Barcelona in a $263 million deal that makes him the most expensive player in soccer history. The fee smashes a record set only one year earlier by Paul Pogba’s $116 million transfer to Manchester United.
The Neymar saga proved to be just the tip of the iceberg with players moving throughout the summer of 2017 at valuations which seemed unthinkable just a few years ago. Romelu Lukaku, Alvaro Morata, Alexander Lacazette, Gylfi Sigurdsson, and Leonardo Bonucci are just a few examples of large fee transfers completed this summer. Many are quick to point to PSG owner Qatar Sports Investments, an investment fund directly backed by the Qatari government, as the inflationary spark saying that investment coming from the sovereign fund is distorting the entire market. But did PSG’s big ticket purchase really set everything off?
This is where it’s helpful to have some perspective. Here’s a visualization of the net transfer spending of the top European leagues (Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1) with the five biggest English clubs + PSG highlighted:
Note that in the past five years these six clubs have accounted for at least 30% (most years the figure is closer to 50%) of total net spending within the European leagues.
If we include all Premier League clubs the gap becomes even more pronounced, with English clubs spending the vast majority of transfer fees in the past decade barring two years in which Ronaldo and Fabregas respectively were sold outside the league.
Maybe PSG is just catching up to the party that the Premier League started?
The Premier League has only held two sponsors in its 24 year history, Carling and Barclays Bank, with the latter in place from 2001 – 04 as the Barclaycard Premiership and since then as the Barclays Premiership. After the 2005 redesign the Premier League branding remained unchanged through the spread of global EPL mania. Despite the growing popularity the limitations of the visual style could be clearly felt as new viewing formats and different digital media sprang up.
The English Football Association announced that the league had begun work on the rebranding after ending its partnership with Barclays in the 2014-15 season with the league planning to forgo any name sponsorship indefinitely. Additionally the FA stated that it would no longer be offering title sponsorship as a branding opportunity, preferring to keep the competition only as “The Premier League” for the forseeable future. Bringing it in line with the other major leagues Bundesliga and Ligue 1 who also eschew title sponsors, La Liga remains the only competition with an official title sponsor, the Spanish bank BBVA.
In their new design DesignStudio retained the iconic crowned lion while discarding the outmoded badge elements to update the logo for the world of flat design. The rest of the visual style has also been upgraded with a duotone claw/stripe pattern being featured prominently in other marketing collateral.
The Soccer CEO 