Despite the fact that during the winter transfer window English and Spanish clubs worked intensively, it was the representatives of "Ligue 1" who spent more money on players.
Most transfers were made in the "Premier" league, which was supplemented by 146 arrivals and from which 151 players departed, while "La Liga" remained second with 127 new arrivals and 65 departing players.
However, signings such as Julian Draxler for PSG, Memphis Depay for Lyon, or Dimitri Payet returning to Marseille in January allowed French clubs to compete with the other strongest leagues in Europe. This they managed to do despite the fact that only 77 new players joined the "Ligue 1" championship.
The highest division of French football said goodbye to 150 million pounds sterling in the winter transfer window, even more than the total spent during the previous summer window, when the total expenses amounted to 138.3 million pounds. However, French clubs themselves only earned 26.7 million pounds from player sales. Interestingly, these figures represent a huge growth compared to January 2016 - back then only 28 million pounds were spent.
The Premier League clubs, in turn, spent 135.8 million pounds, and earned 134.3 million. The expenses are slightly lower than last year, but in the winter of 2016, the English earned only 37 million pounds sterling.
A total of 98 players were added to the Bundesliga team, costing 98 million pounds, while the representatives of La Liga spent 45.3 million pounds.
Serie A was the only one of the strongest leagues that earned more than it spent. Italians bought 72 players for 29.1 million pounds, and sold 74 for 38.7 million.
In January 2017, a total of 3,085 transfers were recorded. 62.6% of them were players with expired contracts who moved to other clubs without a fee, while another 16.1% were loan agreements. Long-term transfers accounted for 11.4% of all transfers, and another 9.9% were players returning to clubs that had loaned them out.
Only 14.6% of transfers involved a transfer fee, and overall all clubs spent 686.1 million pounds sterling.
