Why is there an English tax?

[RashyForPM]

I’ve always been extremely confused about this. It’s not like England are constant World Cup or Euros winners. Heck, we’ve not been the best NT in the world for 54 years now. Decent players like Maguire, Chilwell (strangely going for 50), Maddison and Grealish are valued at £80m or more. The only small reason I can think of is that clubs need to fill their homegrown quotas, but even so, they could just use their respective academies.

Why does the ‘English tax’ exist?

 

[arnie_ni]

In Germany bayern get all the talent on frees

 

[Silas]

Media hype machine.

 

[SilentWitness]

It's very marketable and homegrown status.

 

[Mindhunter]

I’ve always been extremely confused about this. It’s not like England are constant World Cup or Euros winners. Heck, we’ve not been the best NT in the world for 54 years now. Decent players like Maguire, Chilwell (strangely going for 50), Maddison and Grealish are valued at £80m or more. The only small reason I can think of is that clubs need to fill their homegrown quotas, but even so, they could just use their respective academies.

Why does the ‘English tax’ exist?

• English players won’t feck off to Spain after a good season
• Need to fill home grown criteria; can’t have only kids there as the squad will be unbalanced
• Ready to play from day 1; don’t need bedding in time
• English clubs are richer so you need to pay more to tempt them to sell

 

[DWelbz19]

Aside from what’s been said above — “PL proven” is a real thing, to a degree. Not just on the pitch, but more so to do with squad integration and administrative things.

There’s also the natural bias of fans, media, and one would assume managers, in picking players they watch directly when they play against them and weekly on the television over someone who scout number 5 has viewed X amount of times this season.

 

[Offside]

England has the best young footballers in the world. If we signed Sancho him and Greenwood would be the modern day Rooney and Ronaldo.

 

[altodevil]

• English clubs are richer so you need to pay more to tempt them to sell

That's the correct answer. Doesn't matter about nationality, any player from another premiership team has a tax.

 

[bosnian_red]

English clubs are loaded with the TV sponsorship deals. Teams are dumb to shop in the premier league itself as you're paying 200% of the normal price just because the teams don't need to sell financially if they don't want to as they are loaded basically. Also get into the problem of selling when they want to because nobody can afford the high wages.

 

[Addled]

So, Barcelona are rebuilding. Apparently have money to spend. Apparently have, somewhat, decent players to sell.
The mystery for me is that there is a player out there supposedly worth +€100m and Barcelona have zero interest in him. Now, maybe it’s the price tag, but I think if a player is good enough then the price will not be a huge hurdle. If he is good enough, go get him. So, why are united the only team interested in Sancho? Is this the English tax?
Personally, I think United will make a mistake if they splash the reported amount of cash on Sancho. Being English is not enough of a reason to spend €100m.

 

[Harry190]

Why not? It's actually healthy. The local players are valued at a premium. Makes a lot of sense.

 

[M16Red]

England has the best young footballers in the world. If we signed Sancho him and Greenwood would be the modern day Rooney and Ronaldo.

Rashford?

 

[FootballHQ]

TV deals. When foreign clubs learn of premier league interest they add 10-15m to players valuation.

I saw recently AC Milan sold Ricardo Rodriguez to Torino for 3 million euros. I honestly think if a prem club had come in for him it would've been something like 15 million euros.

 

[Untd55]

It's a myth.

There isn't an 'English Tax'; there is a 'Premier League Player Tax'. Why? Because Premier League clubs are rich and don't need to sell. Even that is starting to fade away now, as European clubs have caught on that Premier League clubs are rich and are raising their prices.

Forbes top 10 clubs by value - 6/10 are English. (Top 20 - 9 of them are English clubs, 3 Spanish, 3 German, 4 Italian, and 1 French) - It shows how financially dominant the Premier League is.

Rank	Team	Country	Value in millions	% change on year	Debt as % of value	Revenue ($M)
1	Real Madrid	Spain	4,231	4	6	796
2	Barcelona	Spain	4,205	-1	8	815
3	Manchester United	England	3,983	-8	19	795
4	Bayern Munich	Germany	3,024	-1	0	751
5	Manchester City	England	2,688	9	0	678
6	Chelsea	England	2,576	25	0	597
7	Arsenal	England	2,267	1	11	520
8	Liverpool	England	2,183	12	3	613
9	Tottenham Hotspur	England	1,624	31	37	511
10	Juventus	Italy	1,512	3	9	480

Most expensive Premier League signings between Premier League clubs. The majority of the top signings are not English.

Lukaku, Maguire, Van Dijk, Mahrez, Sterling, Sigurdsson etc.

 

[RoyH1]

TV deals. When foreign clubs learn of premier league interest they add 10-15m to players valuation.

I saw recently AC Milan sold Ricardo Rodriguez to Torino for 3 million euros. I honestly think if a prem club had come in for him it would've been something like 15 million euros.

Spot on. Other clubs know that Premier league teams have a solid tv income across the board and add a big markup to any price.

 

[starman]

English tax was once a thing because there were less foreign players in the league, but I don't think its as prevalent as it once was. There is a PL tax, but when a English player moves people jump on that and like to claim the higher price is just because he is English....

 

[Ekeke]

Media/Pundits/English fans and also transfer history. Chelsea in the past, City and United have shown that they're willing to throw huge money at players who havent turned out to be worth it. Clubs are going to say our player is better so you need to pay the same as you or another big club paid for this guy, or we wont let them go.

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

It’s pretty simple.

If you look at Germany or Italy or Spain or France, how many clubs are there who can buy the best talent in that country?

When you look at the PL, you have so many teams who can spend a lot of money on players, and so they create a greater level of demand.

You need a certain no (I forget how many) home grown players in your squad, so the PL clubs need British players (although England clearly has the biggest population), and so this pushes the price of the players up relative to German players in Germany for example.

 

[KirkDuyt]

Even the minnows in the prem are filthy rich, they have no reason to sell their star player for a beggars fee.

 

[Dante]

It's a myth.

There isn't an 'English Tax'; there is a 'Premier League Player Tax'. Why? Because Premier League clubs are rich and don't need to sell. Even that is starting to fade away now, as European clubs have caught on that Premier League clubs are rich and are raising their prices.

Forbes top 10 clubs by value - 6/10 are English. (Top 20 - 9 of them are English clubs, 3 Spanish, 3 German, 4 Italian, and 1 French) - It shows how financially dominant the Premier League is.

Rank	Team	Country	Value in millions	% change on year	Debt as % of value	Revenue ($M)
1	Real Madrid	Spain	4,231	4	6	796
2	Barcelona	Spain	4,205	-1	8	815
3	Manchester United	England	3,983	-8	19	795
4	Bayern Munich	Germany	3,024	-1	0	751
5	Manchester City	England	2,688	9	0	678
6	Chelsea	England	2,576	25	0	597
7	Arsenal	England	2,267	1	11	520
8	Liverpool	England	2,183	12	3	613
9	Tottenham Hotspur	England	1,624	31	37	511
10	Juventus	Italy	1,512	3	9	480

Most expensive Premier League signings between Premier League clubs. The majority of the top signings are not English.

Lukaku, Maguire, Van Dijk, Mahrez, Sterling, Sigurdsson etc.

100% spot on.

Bruno cost £47m from Sporting, but would cost £120m+ to buy off United after a few months of being PL proven.

The richer the selling club, the higher the asking price. And English clubs are loaded. The bottom club in the PL gets about £100m from the league's distribution just for participating, whilst the bottom club in La Liga gets less than half that.

If PL status earns Aston Villa £120m per year, it's not worth their while to sell Grealish for only £50m. The other 3 players mentioned in the OP all come from Leicester City. You should be noticing a theme here. They're rich.

 

[Dancfc]

Chilwell's price is in or around Cancelo, Mendyx2. It's not just English players prices inflating.

 

[hungrywing]

It's a myth.

There isn't an 'English Tax'; there is a 'Premier League Player Tax'. Why? Because Premier League clubs are rich and don't need to sell. Even that is starting to fade away now, as European clubs have caught on that Premier League clubs are rich and are raising their prices.

Forbes top 10 clubs by value - 6/10 are English. (Top 20 - 9 of them are English clubs, 3 Spanish, 3 German, 4 Italian, and 1 French) - It shows how financially dominant the Premier League is.

Rank	Team	Country	Value in millions	% change on year	Debt as % of value	Revenue ($M)
1	Real Madrid	Spain	4,231	4	6	796
2	Barcelona	Spain	4,205	-1	8	815
3	Manchester United	England	3,983	-8	19	795
4	Bayern Munich	Germany	3,024	-1	0	751
5	Manchester City	England	2,688	9	0	678
6	Chelsea	England	2,576	25	0	597
7	Arsenal	England	2,267	1	11	520
8	Liverpool	England	2,183	12	3	613
9	Tottenham Hotspur	England	1,624	31	37	511
10	Juventus	Italy	1,512	3	9	480

Most expensive Premier League signings between Premier League clubs. The majority of the top signings are not English.

Lukaku, Maguire, Van Dijk, Mahrez, Sterling, Sigurdsson etc.

I wonder if there are average transfer fee data for each league and it lines up with the above.

 

[Dirty Schwein]

In Germany bayern get all the talent on frees

Not sure how true this is but I read a stat that Maguire costs more than the entire Bayern team!

 

[roonster09]

I’ve always been extremely confused about this. It’s not like England are constant World Cup or Euros winners. Heck, we’ve not been the best NT in the world for 54 years now. Decent players like Maguire, Chilwell (strangely going for 50), Maddison and Grealish are valued at £80m or more. The only small reason I can think of is that clubs need to fill their homegrown quotas, but even so, they could just use their respective academies.

Why does the ‘English tax’ exist?

There is no English tax, PL clubs have lot of money which means they don't have to sell to survive. Ndidi is not English player but he will cost shit loads of money.

 

[Adam-Utd]

Not sure how true this is but I read a stat that Maguire costs more than the entire Bayern team!

Mainly the Bayern team that has played the last few matches.

Bayern actually spent a similar figure on Hernandez, who is never fit and way more of a flop than Maguire, but people don't like mentioning that to suit their narrative.

 

[Lentwood]

It's a myth.

There isn't an 'English Tax'; there is a 'Premier League Player Tax'. Why? Because Premier League clubs are rich and don't need to sell. Even that is starting to fade away now, as European clubs have caught on that Premier League clubs are rich and are raising their prices.

Forbes top 10 clubs by value - 6/10 are English. (Top 20 - 9 of them are English clubs, 3 Spanish, 3 German, 4 Italian, and 1 French) - It shows how financially dominant the Premier League is.

Rank	Team	Country	Value in millions	% change on year	Debt as % of value	Revenue ($M)
1	Real Madrid	Spain	4,231	4	6	796
2	Barcelona	Spain	4,205	-1	8	815
3	Manchester United	England	3,983	-8	19	795
4	Bayern Munich	Germany	3,024	-1	0	751
5	Manchester City	England	2,688	9	0	678
6	Chelsea	England	2,576	25	0	597
7	Arsenal	England	2,267	1	11	520
8	Liverpool	England	2,183	12	3	613
9	Tottenham Hotspur	England	1,624	31	37	511
10	Juventus	Italy	1,512	3	9	480

Most expensive Premier League signings between Premier League clubs. The majority of the top signings are not English.

Lukaku, Maguire, Van Dijk, Mahrez, Sterling, Sigurdsson etc.

This is exactly right. In Germany there’s only really Bayern who can sustain a large budget on commercial revenue alone so the rest have to sell to survive. In Italy and Spain the TV money is not evenly distributed like it is in the UK, so again the top clubs are far richer than the rest.

Bear in mind 14 of the top 25 net spends this decade have come from English clubs with another two from China and Russia. Our clubs are insanely rich compared to similar-sized, similar positioned teams in other European leagues

 

[Bubz27]

More money in the English game.

In England Palace can turn down £50m+ for Zaha from Everton. That's a bottom half team turning down massive amounts of money from a midtable team. We have promoted teams able to spend over £100m.

Does/would that happen in Spain, Italy etc? No. Quick example,
Everton finished 12th this year. Record signing. £44m.
Levante finished 12th. Record signing is £8m.
Bologna finished 12th. Record signing is £13.5m.

That'll be true all the way through the table pretty much too.

And to link to OP, obviously there are more English players in English football so their prices will be relatively higher. Same as when you buy from abroad, or the rare situations when you buy English from abroad. Everyone knows English clubs have money. Price goes up.

 

[Ekeke]

Mainly the Bayern team that has played the last few matches.

Bayern actually spent a similar figure on Hernandez, who is never fit and way more of a flop than Maguire, but people don't like mentioning that to suit their narrative.

True! There are other clubs who also overspend on players. But they've been better at getting the most out of what they already had or some of their lesser signings than we have over the last several years. You could even look at Sevilla's transfer business last summer and question some of their buys based on what they've delivered so far - its just so many of the other ones worked out incredibly well that it doesnt matter that their joint largest transfer last summer at 25 million euros Rony Lopez has played just 15 games all season. By spreading their money over 6 or 7 players instead of spending the majority of their money on one single sink or swim transfer they can be considered successful in the market and improve a lot without even their most expensive signing coming good straight away. We're on the other side of things where we spend so much on one player that it really affects us whether they were worth somewhere around what we paid for them and that they can deliver within a season or two.

 

[Adam-Utd]

True! There are other clubs who also overspend on players. But they've been better at getting the most out of what they already had or some of their lesser signings than we have over the last several years. You could even look at Sevilla's transfer business last summer and question some of their buys based on what they've delivered so far - its just so many of the other ones worked out incredibly well that it doesnt matter that their joint largest transfer last summer at 25 million euros Rony Lopez has played just 15 games all season. By spreading their money over 6 or 7 players instead of spending the majority of their money on one single sink or swim transfer they can be considered successful in the market and improve a lot without even their most expensive signing coming good straight away. We're on the other side of things where we spend so much on one player that it really affects us whether they were worth somewhere around what we paid for them and that they can deliver within a season or two.

I think the issue is we've done such a poor job of building the squad since Ferguson, we've ended up having to buy the best targets to guarantee ourselves the player will come good.

Maguire was a solid English CB that knows the league well, did well already at Leicester etc. Yes we could have got a cheaper alternative but we had no room for errors again after Lindelof/Bailly.

Other clubs that already have an established team can sign somebody for a fair amount, they don't need to be held to ransom as they aren't as desperate.

Once we get ourselves a bit more sorted in that area and aren't so desperate for extra quality then we can become more take it or leave it. City have had to walk a similar path also, they were known to throw money around like no tomorrow, but now they're pretty solid they've walked away from a few targets like Jorginho etc.

 

[Sky1981]

Brexit

Enjoy it

 

[Ekeke]

I think the issue is we've done such a poor job of building the squad since Ferguson, we've ended up having to buy the best targets to guarantee ourselves the player will come good.

Maguire was a solid English CB that knows the league well, did well already at Leicester etc. Yes we could have got a cheaper alternative but we had no room for errors again after Lindelof/Bailly.

Other clubs that already have an established team can sign somebody for a fair amount, they don't need to be held to ransom as they aren't as desperate.

Once we get ourselves a bit more sorted in that area and aren't so desperate for extra quality then we can become more take it or leave it. City have had to walk a similar path also, they were known to throw money around like no tomorrow, but now they're pretty solid they've walked away from a few targets like Jorginho etc.

Thats also true. If we look at PSG and Bayern, no doubt they've spent a lot of money on players and there have been question marks about whether some of those players were worth it. But when you look through their entire squad you see so plenty players who at least at one point were considered an attractive transfer option and a good player. For example at PSG you have Draxler who cant get a game in midfield and at Bayern you've got Tolisso who would be a starter somewhere else. And then loans on top of that to make sure they can push towards silverware that season.

 

[Zlatan 7]

The weather and culture and less chance of Foreign players craving hot home weather and culture.
if your english you’re used to the drabness

 

[Class of 63]

Thought it would be obvious, it's hardly why is the Sky blue, or the Grass green now is it.

 

[Dante]

It's not very likely that the Middle Eastern, Russian, American, East Asian or European owners of Premier League clubs are getting together to agree a conspiracy that English players should cost more from each other.

The Glazers - just like every other owner - are about profits. They're not going to sacrifice any of that for the sake of somebody else's nationalism.

 

[Cloud7]

English players won’t feck off to Spain after a good season

To be fair the best British player of the last decade did exactly that, fecked off to Spain after a couple good seasons here.

Rashford was linked to Barcelona while Jose was here, and you can imagine if he was still our manager there was a strong chance that he might have left. Sterling has been linked to Madrid quite a bit if I remember correctly, but of course no one poaches players from City. I think for the absolute best of the best of the British players, the chances of them leaving are higher than you would think, if things aren't going their way and if a favorable club shows interest.

If you're talking about the more mid tier players, then I agree with you, those definitely don't move around as much as their counterparts from other countries.

 

[LVGSdive]

I’ve always been extremely confused about this. It’s not like England are constant World Cup or Euros winners. Heck, we’ve not been the best NT in the world for 54 years now. Decent players like Maguire, Chilwell (strangely going for 50), Maddison and Grealish are valued at £80m or more. The only small reason I can think of is that clubs need to fill their homegrown quotas, but even so, they could just use their respective academies.

Why does the ‘English tax’ exist?

English clubs have more money plus losing out on Premier League money is more substantial. Therefore English clubs don't need to sell as much as many other European clubs do.

 

[Fracture90]

England has the best young footballers in the world. If we signed Sancho him and Greenwood would be the modern day Rooney and Ronaldo.

That wasn't the case before and i don't think it's the case now. France for example has better young players.

 

[Andycoleno9]

Pure stupidity of buying clubs, especially United. When you pay 50+ mil for average player once then next club will try to rip you off also.

 

[Offside]

That wasn't the case before and i don't think it's the case now. France for example has better young players.

A little tongue-in-cheek from me there.

 

[Fracture90]

A little tongue-in-cheek from me there.

I'll be on my way then.