Club's From Europe's Big Five Spent $642.8M In January

The winter '19 edition of FIFA's Big 5 Transfer Window Analysis report on clubs from England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain includes key statistics on transfer activity from January. Of FIFA's 211 member associations, 162 had their registration period open at some point during the month of January. The Big 5 clubs accounted for 59.1% of the global spending during the period, with a combined total of $642.8M spent. Compared to Jan. '18, the volume of int'l transfers to the Big 5 increased by 6.4%, with 282 Big 5 clubs completing an average of 2.1 incoming int'l transfers per club. Once again, England was the world's biggest spender during the period with $178.2M spent, despite a 65% decrease in spending compared to a record-breaking registration period last year. Italy was the second-biggest spender ($144.6M, +459%), followed by Germany ($112.5M, +56.7%), Spain ($112M, -70.1%) and France ($95.4M, +104.6%) (FIFA).