English Premier League soccer clubs spent more than £1.4 billion on players in a record-breaking summer transfer window.
The money for new players was the highest ever transfer window outlay and saw the record tumble for the sixth season in a row.
Buoyed by billions of pounds of cash from selling TV rights, this season has seen player prices inflate to ridiculous levels.
Manchester City spent the most – £221.6 million.
Between them, EPL clubs shipped in 119 players.
The average player cost clubs £13 million – although some superstars traded places for much more.
Most expensive players to switch clubs
The most expensive incomer was Spain international Alvaro Morata. The 24-year-old centre forward moved to Chelsea from Real Madrid for £55.8 million.
But his transfer fee was dwarfed by spending by French club Paris St Germain.
They signed Brazilian forward Neymar, 25, from Barcelona for a world record £204 million and lined up the transfer of the highly-rated 18-year-old Kylian Mbappe for £152 million when his year-long loan spell expires next summer.
To show the scale of spending and how much players earn, the BBC has put together a soccer salary calculator that works out how long top footballers have to work to earn a fan’s wage.
Neymar is reported to earn £775,000 a week, making him the world’s highest paid footballer ahead of China-based Argentine international Carlos Tevez on a comparatively low £650,000 a week.
Average soccer star wages around Europe
The average UK ware after tax is £26,400, which takes Neymar roughly seven minutes to pocket – but takes the average UK worker 1,541 years to amass.
One of the highest paid EPL players is Manchester United’s France midfielder Paul Pogba, who rakes in £11.4 million a year – around £220,000 a week.
Pogba clocks up the average UK wage in 23 minutes.
The average EPL player earns around £2.4 million a year, which works out as £46,150 a week. In other European leagues, Spain’s La Liga players are paid £1.2 million a year; Serie A stars in Italy earn £1.1 million a year and German Bundesliga footballers get £1.03 million.
A £1 million a year salary equals a weekly pay packet of around £20,000.