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Premier League clubs paid almost £320m in agents’ fees during the year from 1 February 2022 to 31 January 2023, new Football Association figures show.
The £318.2m paid to intermediaries was up from £272.6m the previous year.
Manchester City paid the most – £51.56m – and the period includes the signing of Norwegian striker Erling Haaland.
City paid a £51.2m release clause for the Borussia Dortmund forward and it is widely assumed there were huge agents’ fees and salaries involved.
Chelsea, who made 15 significant signings, including loans, are the next highest at £43.16m. Liverpool paid £33.69m and Manchester United £24.73m.
Of the current Premier League clubs, Nottingham Forest paid the least amount in agents’ fees, £4.35m, despite signing more players than any other top-flight club across the last two transfer windows.
The three teams who went down into the Championship last summer – Burnley, Watford and Norwich – all spent in excess of £4m on agents’ fees, the highest in the second tier. By comparison, Reading only spent £200,323.
Derby spent more than £1m despite being relegated to League One, although the club says £760,000 of this was “historic debt” built up before the club went into administration and has now been paid.
Newly-promoted Stockport County spent almost twice as much as any other League Two club – £236,944. Indeed, National League promotion hopefuls Wrexham spent £163,737, more than any other club in the league above apart from County.
The FA is required to publish the data under Fifa regulations on working with intermediaries, introduced in 2015.
The first transaction details published by the FA, covering 2015-16, showed Premier League clubs spent under £47m.
