Liverpool top payers of agents over past year at £14.3m

Premier League clubs as a whole paid £129.8m to agents from October 2014 to September 2015, up from £115m.

Liverpool, meanwhile, paid out the most – £14.3m – as they recruited Christian Benteke, Adam Bogdan, Nathaniel Clyne, Roberto Firmino, Joe Gomez, Danny Ings and James Milner.

A staggering £1billion has been spent by clubs over the past 12 months – £870million of that during the summer transfer window alone. Gokhan Inler came in for £5m from Napoli and Nathan Dyer completed City’s business when he arrived on loan from Swansea. The amounts include payments made by clubs on behalf of players. This money is usually spent in a player purchase but can also be handed over when a player signs a new contract extension.

According to Sport24, there were total of 172 loans, 542 new or improved contracts, 573 outbound transfers and loans that have taken place in the Premier League.

As we all know, despite the TV cash mountain, the Premier League is the most expensive to watch, with fans in countries such as Germany staring in disbelief at the greed of English clubs and even more so, at the fact that fans quietly accept the situation. There was a successful move to have the practice banned earlier this year, Michel Platini likening third-party ownerships to slavery.

The total spent by the 24 Championship clubs was £26.1 million.