Aston Villa top Championship table – for paying agents’ fees
Aston Villa have topped the latest Championship table – for paying agents’ fees.
The impact of Harry Redknapp’s time at city rivals Birmingham City can also be seen in the Football Association data, as the club’s spending on intermediaries increased 217% on a year earlier.
The data is published as part of FIFA regulations to promote transparency and this is the second set of annual figures to be released.
For the period February 1, 2017 to January 31 2018 – which covers the summer and winter transfer windows – Premier League clubs paid £211.0m to intermediaries and Championship clubs spent £42.2m.
Aston Villa paid £5.5m, more than £1m more than any other club in the Championship and a greater sum than four Premier League clubs.
Birmingham City were fifth-biggest spending in the division – behind Sunderland, Reading and Middlesbrough – at £2.5m. However it was more than three times greater than the amount spent in the previous year.
The region’s other Championship clubs, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Burton Albion, paid £2.0m and £270,000 respectively.
Nearly half of the Premier League clubs’ spending on agents was by four clubs – Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United – who paid out £93.4m between them.
10 Premier League clubs spent between £4.4m-£8.4m each, including Stoke City, with £6.2m, and West Bromwich Albion, with £4.8m.
Coventry City were League Two’s biggest spenders, although its total of £114,000 out of a division aggregate of £959,000, demonstrates the huge gulf in spending power between the leagues.
