The highest-spending leagues in world football in 2025-26

6. Championship – £357m

The financial power of English football is demonstrated early in this list, with the Championship the sixth-highest spending league in world football. Clubs in England’s second tier invested more than £350m on new signings in 2025-26, with the arrival of ambitious Birmingham City and Wrexham from League One contributing to that sum.

Both of those sides featured in the top-five spenders, though it’s Ipswich and Southampton, backed by Premier League parachute payments, who lead the spending. Ipswich spent £17.5m to sign teenager winger Sindre Walle Egeli in a Championship record deal in August.

5. Saudi Pro League – £492m

Though the Saudi Pro League has certainly shaken things up when it comes to football transfers, the big-spending division reined it in slightly last summer.

Saudi sides spent just shy of £500m on recruits, with Serie A top-scorer Mateo Retegui and ex-Liverpool forward Darwin Nunez among the high-profile deals of the 2025-26 season.

4. Ligue 1 – £641m

Ligue 1 sits fourth for spending in 2025-26, in what was a relatively modest season for investment. Just three players arrived in France for fees in excess of €30m, with the biggest the £57m deal that took Ilia Zabaryni to Paris Saint-Germain from Bournemouth.

Marseille were the only other side to sign a player for €30m or more after recruiting winger Igor Paixao from Feyenoord.

3. La Liga – £656m

La Liga once held the crown as football’s biggest spenders. In the seven times that the world transfer record has been broken this century, five of those deals belonged to La Liga.

It’s been over a decade since La Liga last held that record, as spending has significantly slowed down. Barcelona’s economic issues and Real Madrid’s more modest recruitment – including targeting high-profile Bosmans – have seen the Spanish side switch strategy.

Just one Spanish team, Atletico Madrid, sits in football’s top 10 clubs for expenditure this season, while only Real Madrid rank in the top 10 for net spend.

2. Serie A – £1.23 billion

Only two leagues have surpassed a billion spent on transfer fees in 2025-26.

Serie A has passed that milestone, with a spend that’s almost double that of La Liga. There was plenty of money to reinvest for Italians clubs, with Victor Osimhen, Mateo Retegui, Tijjani Reijnders, and Dan Ndoye among the significant Serie A sales.

Five teams spent in excess of €100m on transfers, including ambitious Como. Despite a spend that dwarfs several other domestic leagues, the highest individual transfer fee paid was just £36m.

1. Premier League – £3.53 billion

The economic powerhouse that is the Premier League has once again blown its competition out of the water.

English sides spent over £3.5bn on new signings during the 2025-26 season, with Liverpool setting a single-window record spend of £446m last summer, twice breaking the British transfer record for Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak.

Arsenal lead in terms of net spend, an investment that has been rewarded as the Gunners lead the table.

The Premier League’s spending was more than the other five leagues on this list combined.

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