...off the post!

From the London Times:

The true inflationary impact on English football of Roman Abramovich’s takeover of Chelsea is revealed today by a benchmark study that shows player costs in the professional leagues rising past the £1 billion mark in the Russian billionaire’s first full season of ownership.

Wages and net transfers in the 2003-04 season across the four divisions were £1.049 billion compared with £852 million the previous season, according to Deloitte and Touche’s annual review of football finance. It is the first time that player costs have exceeded £1 billion and is a phenomenon caused by Chelsea’s record spending spree in pursuit of the Barclays Premiership title.

To put the sum into context, it eclipses the gross domestic products, on an exchange rate basis, of Lesotho and Mauritania, the African countries that together comprise about five million people. The £786 million in wages alone paid to 2,347 professional footballers is roughly equivalent to the estimated GDP this year of Mongolia. Of that sum, £583 million went to Premiership players.

Here are some graphics on how the figures break down in England per club and over time.

This doesn't come as much of a surprise, but I still find it disturbing. I'm not sure how people can justify the absurd amounts of money thrown around in European football, particularly in England. A certain portion of this can be attributed to the "Ambramovich effect," but the expenditures seem to be growing across the board at the top tier clubs.