International men's transfer spending cooled during the mid-year trading period, according to FIFA’s latest research released Tuesday.
FIFA reported that clubs spent $6.46 billion on cross-border player transfers from June to September, a decrease from $7.43 billion during the same period last year.
The average transfer fee paid by clubs in Europe, the richest market by far, was $3.13 million, down from $3.8 million a year ago.
The FIFA study is not comprehensive, as it does not account for the biggest transfer deal of the European offseason nor include moves between clubs in the same country.
Kylian Mbappe joined Real Madrid without a transfer fee being paid because he was a free agent after his contract expired at Paris Saint-Germain. However, Madrid paid Mbappe a signing bonus reported to be between $110 million and $165 million.
The biggest transfer fees in cross-border deals were Julian Alvarez’s move from Manchester City to Atletico Madrid, reported to be about 75 million euros ($83 million), and Leny Yoro’s transfer from Lille to Manchester United, reported at 62 million euros.
The FIFA study does not include deals involving transfers between two clubs in the same country where the player’s registration is not transferred between member federations.
Top transfers not counted in FIFA’s figures include Dominic Solanke’s move from Bournemouth to Tottenham, Pedro Neto’s transfer from Wolves to Chelsea, and Teun Koopmeiners’ transfer from Atalanta to Juventus.
English clubs were the biggest overall and net spenders, with an outlay of $1.69 billion on international transfers and $1.25 billion recouped. Clubs in England, Italy, and Saudi Arabia all had a collective net spending of at least $400 million.
Belgian clubs recorded a net profit of $302 million, receiving $412 million from selling players abroad and spending $110 million on players from other countries.
Notable deals included Igor Thiago moving from Club Brugge to Brentford and Ernest Nuamah transferring from Molenbeek to Lyon.
Clubs from Argentina made about $130 million more than they spent, while Brazilian clubs made a collective profit of $98 million on international deals, FIFA said.
Of the record 11,000 international transfers processed by FIFA in the past three months, most did not include a fee, and nearly 6,300 were free agents.