MADRID, Sept. 1 (Xinhua) -- The transfer window closed on the Spanish Liga Santander and the second division (Liga 123) on Friday night with the Spanish Football League (LaLiga) informing the a total of 380 transfers were made between the clubs in the top-two divisions.
Clubs in the Liga Santander spent a total of 887.92 million euros over the summer (291.82 million more than in the summer of 2017), while receiving 801.6 million euros from the sale of players (126 million euros more than a year ago.)
That means there is a deficit of 86.32 million euros between the cost of purchases and sales, while in the summer of 2017, Spanish clubs actually earned 79.5 million euros.
Although the club failed to make a ‘Galactico’ signing this summer, Real Madrid still spent more money than any other club in Spain, with a total of €146,25 million euros bringing in Thibaut Courtois, Alvado Odriozola, Vinicius Jr and Mariano Diaz, who was signed from Lyon on Wednesday.
That cost was partly offset by the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo to Juventus for a price of over 100 million euros.
Barca were the second highest spenders, bringing in Arthur, Malcom, Arturo Vidal and Clement Lenglet, while Atletico Madrid brought in seven new faces, one of whom, Thomas Lemar, was the most expensive player signed by a Spanish club this summer at a price of 70 million euros.
At the other end of the scale newly promoted Valladolid had the lowest transfer budget, spending just 2 million euros to prepare for their return to the top flight. Valladolid were one of three clubs, including Alaves and Huesca that also failed to earn any income from transfers.
Meanwhile the busiest summer was at Leganes; where the side from the south of Madrid, not only signed a new coach, Manuel Pellegrino, but brought in 17 new players, with 20 going the other way.
It’s fair to say that Pellegrino has quite a rebuilding task ahead of him in the coming weeks.