The English Premier League is the most-watched football division in the world and considered by many as the most exciting.
The deal allowed all 20 clubs to splash out mega bucks for players during this past summer transfer window. 13 clubs in all broke… smashed their transfer record signings. This included Bournemouth splashing £15.3 million on Liverpool’s Jordon Ibe who had only 41 appearances, one goal and three assists to his name.
Leicester City actually managed to break their record signing three times in one summer – first with the acquisition of Nampalys Mendy from Nice, then Ahmed Musa from CSKA Moscow before splashing out £29 million on Islam Slimani from Sporting Club of Portugal.
Interesting record breakers included Hull City splashing out £10 million on Ryan Mason and Southampton paying £16 million for Sofiane Boufal.
The biggest transfer news of the summer though was Manchester United splashing out a world record £89 million on Paul Pogba from Juventus. He’s certainly not looked anywhere near that valuation so far!
Pogba’s arrival at Old Trafford also meant that the world’s most expensive footballer wasn’t at Real Madrid for the first time since July 2000 when the Spanish giants purchased Luís Figo from their rivals Barcelona, breaking Lazio’s £35.5 million fee splashed out on Parma’s Hernán Crespo just a fortnight before.
All this money spent has seen a competitive start to the 2016-17 Premier League season with Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City separated only by four points after 14 games.
Liverpool are aiming to become the seventh different champion of the Premier League, now in its 25th season. Last season Leicester City became the sixth winner – one more than both Spain’s La Liga and Italy’s Serie A since the English top flight was rebranded in 1992. Paddy Power Premier League betting odds are currently 9/2 that Jürgen Klopp’s side will be top of the table after 38 games.
Germany’s Bundesliga has also seen six different champions during this period, though Bayern Munich have been top of the pile 14 times since 1992 – once more than Manchester United and twice more than Barcelona.
France are able to boast the biggest variety of champions over the past 24 seasons – Olympique Lyonnais, Paris Saint-Germain, AS Monaco, Bordeaux, Nantes, Auxerre, Lens, Lille, Montpellier and Olympique Marseille have all been crowned Ligue 1 champions.
There have only been 44 teams to have played in Ligue 1 over the past 25 years – only one more than the Bundesliga despite being a 20-team league compared to 18 in Germany’s top flight. Italy are able to boast the most variety as Crotone became the 48th team to play in Serie A since the start of the Premier League. The English top flight itself has had 47 with Bournemouth being the latest.
This and much exciting information on Europe’s top leagues can be found in the graphic below:
