MADRID, Sept. 2 — The summer transfer window in Spain closed at one minute to midnight on Monday night with clubs in La Liga spending considerably less than other major leagues in Europa.
Partly conditioned by La Liga’s strict wage-ceiling rules, clubs in Spain’s top-flight spent around 700 million euros (815 million U.S. dollars) in new signings, which was far from evenly spread around the 20 clubs in the league, with Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid accounting for almost half of the money to change hands over the summer.
Atletico was the biggest spender for the second consecutive summer, with players such Alex Baena, David Hanko, Johnny Cardoso and Thiago Almada costing around 170 million euros, slightly more than the 167 million spent by Real Madrid.
Real Madrid, however, made the three most expensive signings of the summer, in Franco Mastantuono, Alvaro Carreras and Dean Huijsen.
Real’s signings have also had an immediate impact as Xabi Alonso’s team sits top of the table with three wins from three matches, while Atletico is seven points behind with just two draws and a defeat.
FC Barcelona’s financial problems were again made evident with the club’s spending limited to the 25 million euros spent on goalkeeper Joan Garcia from Espanyol, although Garcia’s early displays show that is money well spent.
Barca’s inability to sign Nico Williams from Athletic Bilbao means they took a low-cost option in bringing in Marcus Rashford on loan from Manchester United, with the Englishman so far struggling to adapt to the new competition.
Betis spent 25 million euros in the last-day signing of Antony from Manchester United, while Villarreal made a club record signing with the arrival of Georgian forward George Mikautadze from Olympique Lyon.
Finally, Girona will hope the last-day arrivals of Ukrainian striker Vladyslav Vanat and the return of Bryan Gil to lift the club after a dreadful start to the campaign that has started with three consecutive defeats. (Xinhua)
