Over £38bn spent on player transfers in past decade: FIFA

More than £38bn ($48.5bn) has been spent on transfer fees worldwide over the past decade - with English clubs leading the list of big spenders.

World governing body FIFA conducted extensive research of transfers that took place between 2011 and 2020.

Manchester City and Chelsea headed the table of biggest-spending sides, two of 12 Premier League clubs in the top 30.

Southampton, 21st in the table overall, spent more than Borussia Dortmund, the report says.

The report marks a decade since FIFA launched its Transfer Matching System.

FIFA introduced the system to record player transfers between clubs, making it mandatory in October 2010.

Over the past decade, there have been far more transfers involving Brazilian players (15,128) - and more money spent on them (£5.14bn/$7.070bn) - than on footballers from any other nation.

Neymar remains the only player to have been sold for more than $200m (currently £145m), according to the report.

There have been 14 deals up to 2020 to have exceeded $100m (currently £72.7m), with Argentina forward Angel di Maria the only player to have been involved in two of them.

New Chelsea signing Romelu Lukaku - bought for a club record fee of £97.5m on 12 August - but will not join Di Maria in being listed twice among the biggest deals, as his transfers to Manchester United and Inter Milan were for less than $100m, according to FIFA.

Overall, English clubs' net transfer spend of $7.23bn (£5.26bn) was far higher than any other nation, with China $1.46bn (£1.06bn) next.