Last week, Manchester United signed Leny Yoro for £52 million, a move that made European football sit up and take notice.
The majority of experts anticipated Lille’s adolescent defender would join with Real Madrid, but United entered the contest to recruit him with better returns and longer challenges.
It is the largest summer move in Premier League history and a significant indication of faith in a player so young. But it should not be shocking that United decided to invest so much money in this particular area.
The 20 Premier League clubs have together spent more money in Ligue 1, the French premier division where Yoro rose to prominence last season, than in any other overseas league over the previous ten years.
Prior to this summer, the expenditure stood at £1.81 billion ($2.34 billion) and is expected to surpass £2 billion in the coming six weeks. There is no comparison to the sheer volume of players—145 to date—who are leaving French clubs to play in the Premier League.
Since 2014, no other European league—though Germany’s Bundesliga and Spain’s La Liga are close behind—has reaped the majority of the Premier League’s transfer fee revenues. This includes France’s top division.
The majority of Premier League clubs’ budget used to be allocated to La Liga. With 27% more money spent there than in France, Spain’s top division easily received the majority of transfer cash from the Premier League in the ten years between 2004–05 and 2013–14.
Although almost £1.76 billion was spent on La Liga players in the ensuing ten years, other countries—most notably Germany—have since caught up. Between 2014–15 and 2023–24, Bundesliga clubs sold players for a total of £1.72 billion; the summer of last year saw the most outlay ever.
The Premier League spent a total of £378 million on Bundesliga players during a transfer window that saw RB Leipzig sell Dominik Szoboszlai to Liverpool, Christopher Nkunku to Chelsea, and Josko Gvardiol to Manchester City. In actuality, the running total since 2018 is £1.26 billion, which puts it just ahead of Ligue 1 during that shorter evaluation period.
Although Serie A attracted the attention of the Premier League last summer and brought in over £300 million in transfer fees, it continues to be the least preferred of the five major European leagues, yielding a £1.48 billion return over a ten-year period.
Despite this, France continues to lead the total spending chart, having led the way in four of the previous nine seasons. Furthermore, it appears from this summer’s early initiatives—most notably Yoro—that this is anything from a fleeting trend.
Despite being ranked lower in UEFA’s national coefficient rankings than competitor leagues like La Liga, Bundesliga, and Serie A, Ligue 1 nevertheless serves as Europe’s premier breeding ground for talent. According to the reputable website Transfermarkt, at least ten players have been acquired from Ligue 1 clubs in 19 of the last 20 years. That sum was 22 in 2022–2023; Premier League clubs spent £312 million on Ligue 1 players, compared to Ligue 1 clubs’ £153 million.
While there have been some costly errors, like Arsenal’s £72 million signing of Lille’s Nicolas Pepe in 2019, there have also been a number of recent success stories, including Gabriel (Arsenal), Bruno Guimaraes (Newcastle United), William Saliba (Arsenal, 2018; however, he spent the next three seasons on loan at Ligue 1 clubs), and Amadou Onana (former Lille player), who yesterday moved from Everton to Aston Villa for a sum of £50 million.
The Athletic conducted interviews with several football industry figures to understand why English clubs were choosing to shop in Ligue 1. The people who replied requested to remain anonymous, citing reasons such as lack of authorization to speak or sensitive commercial information, but their responses were insightful.
A senior Premier League official cited Ligue 1’s physicality and athleticism as well as the possibility of signings developing quickly with improved coaching in England. Meanwhile, a top agent said that, when compared to data production, Ligue 1 has historically provided value for money. When they perform at a level that requires technical proficiency, players there typically check off a lot of boxes.
It is difficult to say exactly when Premier League clubs started to pay such close attention to French football.
It might have been the influence of David Ginola, the brilliant winger with Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur, or Eric Cantona, Manchester United’s daring No. 7 from the 1990s, but it is more likely that Arsenal was deeply impacted by their French link under Arsene Wenger.
In addition to Nicolas Anelka, Emmanuel Petit, and Robert Pires, there was Sylvain Wiltord, as well as Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira, who had brief stints in Serie A. Wenger was able to get technically proficient and physically robust players at a significantly lower cost than their English football counterparts. Throughout Wenger’s 22 years as Arsenal’s manager, 28 French players signed contracts with the team.
Where he lead, others immediately followed. It made sense to sign players from Ligue 1 whether they were French or not. In the 2012–13 season alone, Newcastle United bought five players from French clubs, making history as the first Premier League team to spend more than £100 million on imports from a single league. That was the year that Tottenham bought Hugo Lloris from Lyon, Olivier Giroud left Montpellier to join Arsenal, and Chelsea got Eden Hazard from Lille. All three transactions were significant, but they all enhanced the perceived pedigree of Ligue 1 targets.
Younger players are frequently used in French football, showcasing their potential and promise to foreign suitors. According to UEFA’s annual study, The European Club Footballing Landscape, players in France who were 23 years of age or younger accounted for 39% of all domestic minutes played in the 2021–22 season. This makes it the league with the youngest profile among the major European leagues, far less than the 26% of minutes in the Premier League that are played by players under 24 and the 20% in La Liga where English clubs have stopped spending in recent years.
The only league with a significantly younger population than Ligue 1 was the Netherlands’ Eredivisie, which has been actively pursued by English clubs in recent years. Approximately 47% of minutes were played by players under the age of 24. In actuality, Premier League teams spent £240 million on players from the Dutch top flight in 2022–2023 at the conclusion of the assessment period detailed in UEFA’s report. These players included Antony, Lisandro Martinez, Cody Gakpo, and Noni Madueke.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for European rivals to compete with the Premier League’s financial might, and Ligue 1 is the one that is most vulnerable with its contemporary TV rights issues. The Premier League’s combined TV contracts are worth almost £3 billion a year, far more than the recently signed domestic deal of £420 million with DAZN and beIN Sports. Since reaching their high in the 2016–20 cycle, the value of the Ligue 1 rights has actually decreased.
Clubs in Spain, Germany, and Italy experience similar demands, but not as much as those in France. Selling players has become an essential component of the business plan, and Lille—who just sold Yoro to Manchester United last week—do it better than anyone. Lille, who placed fourth in Ligue 1 the previous season, has sold players worth £250 million to Premier League teams during the past five years, including Sven Botman, Carlos Baleba, Onana, Gabriel, and Pepe.
One of the more well-known teams in French football, Lyon, has also demonstrated skill. Since 2019, their returns have also exceeded £200 million, thanks to the sales of players like Lucas Paqueta (to West Ham), Guimaraes (to Newcastle), and Tanguy Ndombele (to Tottenham) for enormous sums of money.
Although Ligue 1 was able to surpass both La Liga and Serie A with a net transfer spend of less than £30 million during the summer transfer window, a large part of that success was attributable to Paris Saint-Germain’s extravagant spending, which was made possible by their ownership group, Qatar Sports Investment.
PSG is still the only French team in the top 10 of Deloitte’s Football Money League, which ranks the highest-earning European teams. Lyon ranked 29th and Marseille 20th in the 2024 rankings, but the other teams in Ligue 1, particularly those who do not profit from the additional revenue generated by European football, might enjoy a significant increase in revenue from a single sale. English overtures are more difficult to decline.
French football has therefore been central to development strategies for multiple clubs. The owners of Chelsea, BlueCo, purchased Strasbourg last year, and FSG, the owners of Liverpool, had recently discussed purchasing Bordeaux, a historically significant team that is currently languishing in the second division, but those talks broke down last week. The incentive for assuming ownership of its teams is based on the same rationales as the transfer market’s targeting of French players.
It makes sense, considering how many people have moved from Ligue 1 to the Premier League. Between 2004 and 2024, 260 players were signed from the French top league, more than Spain (245), Italy (192), and Germany (171).
How much did Ligue 1 signings cost on average over that period? Not quite £9 million.
The Bundesliga in Germany has shown more interest in the Covid-19 years, so the Premier League’s attention is expanding, but Ligue 1 is still the best place to find a new player. A timely example of such is Yoro.
(Top photos: Leny Yoro, Gabriel and William Saliba; all Getty Images)
