Rise of the petro-giants: PSG, Manchester City and Chelsea eclipse old guard

In times of crisis, the wealthy frequently emerge victoriously. The lesson of this transfer window is that the powerful are mopping up, while teams across Europe continue to struggle financially because of the pandemic. Or, at the very least, they are if they are well-run, which throws out the two Spanish giants and a number of Italian clubs.

Fans camped out at the Paris airport to greet Lionel Messi and queued around the block to buy a shirt with his name on the back, while Manchester United's share price jumped by over 10% on the news of Cristiano Ronaldo's signing before falling slightly. This will delight executives and appear to justify the investment, though it's unclear if those increases will be sustained enough to cover both players' massive salaries.

Financial difficulties at the selling clubs prompted both decisions. These weren't huge declarations of intent like Neymar's €222 million transfer from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain in 2017. It's looking more and more like the contract will be remembered as a watershed moment in football's power shift. It was the largest proportionate leap ever witnessed, more than double the previous transfer record. It was PSG's way of signaling to the conventional elite that they could afford anyone, and it inflated the market in a way that was generating issues for established teams even before Covid struck.

Messi's departure was a result of Neymar's arrival. Fearful of losing the player they thought would replace Messi, Barça went on a spending spree, forgetting about the philosophy-driven years and the painstaking development of players through La Masia as they chased celebrities and off-the-shelf solutions, culminating in a €1.3 billion debt. Even so, rather than having to reregister Messi, they could have extended his contract before it expired. Barcelona's level of mismanagement is mesmerizing, both in terms of depth and consistency.

Juventus' errors are more reasonable in the same sense that hitting yourself with a spoon is more understandable than hitting yourself with a hammer. Signing Ronaldo in 2018 as the anticipated final piece in the Champions League puzzle was part of a broader cultural shift that also saw Juve choose Andrea Pirlo as a coach, despite never quite figuring out what kind of game they were supposed to be playing. The club is reportedly significantly more popular on Instagram now than it was before Ronaldo's arrival, however, whether sacrificing a successful team to achieve this was a reasonable price to pay is debatable.

Max Allegri was the first big casualty in Juve's celebrity-driven recruitment strategy in 2019. After returning to the club this summer, he was delighted to let Ronaldo go, allowing him to focus on rebuilding the squad and reducing the club's debt without the distraction of a center-forward who barely contributes to the press.

Only four clubs could afford their wages once it became clear the two were moving: Chelsea (who were not interested), Manchester City, Manchester United, and PSG. Three of them do not rely on football for their income, while the fourth has been incredibly successful in forming relationships with a wide range of items in a wide range of markets. That is, of course, why so many super-clubs were eager to join the proposed European Super League in the spring — and why PSG never did, and Chelsea and City were the first to quit due to reservations.

It's too early to say whether the super-club era is finished, but there has been a significant shift in the dynamic this summer. The Premier League's transfer fee budget may have shrunk by 9%, but the net cost is still £560 million, more than ten times that of any other league. This summer, Premier League clubs paid nine of the top twelve costs.

Real Madrid's proposal for Kylian Mbappé, which reportedly fetched up to €200 million — an incredible sum for a player with only a year left on his contract. Apart from providing an example of why Madrid is in such a financial mess, the fact that PSG rejected the deal speaks volumes about their dominance.

Given their effectively infinite resources and their desire for the trident of Mbappé, Neymar, and Messi to lead their charge for the Champions League, it's hard not to think that PSG should have accepted merely to see how Madrid planned to raise the money.

This should be an era of English dominance in European play, especially for the two petro-clubs and United, a distinct subset of the Big Six. It's surprising that City elected to break their transfer record for Jack Grealish, especially given their caution with Harry Kane, but what's more startling is that Chelsea has been able to make a profit despite adding Romelu Lukaku and Salguez.

This is a testament to the value of investing in an academy since Chelsea brought in nearly 60% of the money this summer from players they had nurtured themselves. However, the signing of Saal was made possible by Atlético Madrid's desire to offload him in order to recruit Antoine Griezmann, as Barça continues to sell assets.

Marina Granovskaia, Chelsea's CEO, is certainly a skilled negotiator, but it also helps that Chelsea has such a large stockpile of players (Michy Batshuayi, Matt Miazga, Baba Rahman, Kenedy...) who can be loaned out and then sold when the time is right.

It's possible that the traditional elites will reassert themselves over time, and reliance on an external source of income will never be completely secure, but this transfer window signaled a significant shift in the game's economics, the end of the super-club era and the start of the era of clubs with independent means.