The "vast riches pouring into the coffers of Europe’s top divisions hide a myriad of poor investments and bad calls on quickly forgotten players," but a handful of clubs stand out as "winners in football’s multibillion-euro transfer game," according to Ahmed & Burn-Murdoch of the FINANCIAL TIMES. The accounts of 69 clubs were analyzed over four seasons, using a database compiled by KPMG. Atlético Madrid is Europe’s "smartest" spending club, according to a "key measure of success based on wages to points accrued." Between '11 and '15, the club "outperformed the league points total it would statistically be expected to win," based on the size of its wage bill and relative to others in La Liga. Other clubs that have "spent effectively in recent seasons" include EPL sides Everton, Tottenham Hotspur and Southampton, with each "scoring well when their wage bills are compared with the points they have secured." The worst performers, meanwhile, "naturally include clubs that have been relegated from their top-tier leagues," such as Italy’s Cesena, France’s Brest and England’s Queens Park Rangers, which have "spent tens of millions of euros to little effect." Football fans "fiercely debate whether the expensively assembled squads are worth the money paid for them." But "sober-minded analysts of the game," such as Stefan Szymanski, author of Money and Football: A Soccernomics Guide, say that the "best predictor of a team’s league placing is its wage bill." KPMG Global Head of Sports Andrea Sartori said that clubs that "continue notably to outperform on the pitch compared with their spending on players could soon find themselves among the highest-earning European clubs." Sartori: "There is a circle in football. If you win on the pitch, you are capable of engaging your fans, engaging the sponsors and growing revenues. If you invest that revenue well, you can continue to win on the pitch and continue this virtuous circle." The analysis also reveals the "marked difference in spending power between Premier League clubs and European counterparts, regardless of how well that money is spent." English teams have "grown in financial strength compared with their European counterparts." Every one of the 14 Premier League clubs for which the FT has data "rose up the rankings in terms of total revenues relative to almost all of the other 55 major European clubs in KPMG’s database" (FT, 2/3).
