by ‘Ifreke Inyang

The impact of the impending UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations, is slowly having a stranglehold on transfer dealings.

FIFA’s mid-year review of the international market has been revealed that worldwide transfer spending fell by more than one-third in the first half of 2012. This has seen transactions between clubs for permanent and loan deals fall from $294 million (£190 million) to $576 million, a decrease of 34% on the same period last year.

According to the document:

“This could suggest that the effects of the global recession – for instance, distressed corporate sponsors, restrictive bank lending policies and reduced overdraft facilities for clubs – are being felt in the international football transfer market.

“A further factor may be the high concentration of wealth in a relatively small number of associations; any reduction in spending in those few associations could have a disproportionately high impact on aggregate transfer fees worldwide.

“Finally, given the share of the European transfer market, the efforts of those clubs to bring themselves in line with the UEFA Financial Fair Play Regulations before the onset of sanctions for indebted clubs may contribute to a fall-off in transfer compensation rates.”

Russia emerged as the biggest-spending country in the first half, with $64.39 million spent on transfers. English clubs spent $55.43 million but raked in $58.83  million in sales.

The data was obtained from a total of 4,973 completed transfers during the time in question. Brazilian clubs were involved in 708 transfers – the highest number, while English clubs came in second with 326 deals.