CLUBS IN THE LEAGUE of Ireland earned a total of €6.35 million in international transfer fees across 2022, new figures have shown.
This total pertains to 109 registered international transfers only, so moves between clubs in Ireland are not included. The figure consists of a player’s transfer fee along with any conditional clauses met across the year but does not include sell-on fees or training compensation fees.
An example of a conditional clause is an agreed appearance bonus, whereby the selling club is rewarded with another fee if the player in question makes an agreed number of first-team appearances.
The total is included in Fifa’s latest annual report on the international transfer market, which was published earlier today. The same report shows that LOI clubs signed 97 players from abroad across 2022, with a total outlay of less than €100,000 on transfer fees.
The total of €6.35 million maintains an upward trajectory in fees paid by international clubs for LOI players. A total of 78 transfers brought in just €644,000 in 2020, while that figure jumped to €3.87 million from the 71 transfers made in 2021.
Of the 54 leagues affiliated to Uefa, all but 10 returned a sum total of transfer receipts in 2022. Last year, Irish clubs made more in transfer fees than the clubs in 13 of these leagues: Albania, Belarus, Bosnia, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Northern Ireland, North Macedonia, and Moldova.
A comparison with other countries with a similar population tells a familiar but no less galling tale for Irish football, however. Clubs in the Croatian league, for instance, raked in €45.2 million in transfer fees, while Danish clubs accumulated €114.9 million.
Increasing transfer fees paid for young Irish talent is widely seen as crucial to creating a virtuous cycle of money in the League of Ireland. The advent of Brexit has denied young Irish players a move to the UK until they are 18 years of age thus making it much more likely they will sign professional terms in Ireland, which allows their club demand a transfer fee if the player wishes to leave before the contract expires.
Daniel Lambert, the chief Operating Officer at Bohemians, last year called on Irish clubs to unite and introduce a collective baseline for release clauses in the contracts of Irish players.
Elsewhere, Fifa report that the pandemic showed no lingering effects on the international transfer market in the men’s game, with this year’s total of 20,209 completed transfers a new record and an increase of 10% on the previous year. 86% of these transfers did not involve a fee, but the remaining 2,843 transfers combined to yield a record high of €6 billion in fees paid.
English clubs alone accounted for more than a third of this figure (€2.03 billion), with Manchester United the highest spenders in the world in 2022. Barcelona were next on this list, followed by Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Newcastle United, West Ham, Wolves, PSG, Man City, and Leeds United. 11 of the top 20 highest spenders are English clubs.
The 10 most expensive transfers of 2022 accounted for 12.5% of the total amount spent in the year, with Fifa rating Aurélien Tchouaméni’s move from Monaco to Real Madrid as the most expensive deal of the year. Darwin Nunez’ transfer from Benfica to Liverpool was second on the same list, followed by Antony and Casemiro’s moves to Manchester United from Ajax and Real Madrid respectively.
There were 1,555 international transfers made in the women’s professional game, a record and an increase of nearly 20% on the year previous. The fees spent on these transfers amounted to €3.04 million, a huge 62% increase on 2021. Keira Walsh’s move from Man City to Barcelona was the year’s most expensive transfer deal.
Meanwhile, the impact of the war in Ukraine was reflected in the figures for the adult amateur game, with the 5,910 players who left clubs in Ukraine to register for clubs abroad marking a five-fold increase. 2,061 of these registered for clubs in Germany, with another 1,387 joining clubs in Poland.
The full report can be read here.
