An exercise carried out by the Gazzetta dello Sport a few days ago has shown that things are changing rapidly in football, as clubs with little history are taken over by Arab sheiks with the money to invest in an otherwise beleaguered scenario.

The exercise showed that three clubs which do not have anything to shout about in their curriculum have spent the most in the current transfer window. Of course, this may change by the end of August, but what has happened so far has shown that there are few clubs with money to spend – and most of these clubs are relatively new to the high end of the transfer market

The Gazzetta dello Sport reported that French club Paris St Germain tops the list of big-spenders with €86 million, followed by English club Manchester City on €62.75 million, while Spanish club Malaga are in third place with €58 million. Manchester United, Real Madrid, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Juventus, Barcelona, Inter, Chelsea and Milan follow them in this order, with Milan spending just €10 million.

PSG have recently been taken over by Qatar sheik Tamin Bin Hamad al Thani, who also managed to persuade Inter coach Leonardo to cut his ties from the Italian club. Their intentions are to buy more players in a bid to become one of the strongest clubs in Europe.

Manchester City’s Mansur bin Zayd has been on the football scene for a couple of years, and has already built a solid squad capable of reaching the Champions League for the first time. His ambitions are to go higher than that – both in domestic and international competitions.

Malaga are owned by Andullah ben Nasser, and his purchases are aimed to take the Spanish club as close as possible to the two giants that have dominated football in this country – and not only – for decades.

It is a kind of Arab football revolution that Europeans will have to grow accustomed to. Whether the big names in European football will be able to match the investment made by the Arab sheiks is unlikely, but they have years of experience on their side and often money is not enough. Clubs need good administration, and the purchasing of several great individual players is not a guarantee that they will blend perfectly into a team.

What is sure is that football is going through a fast evolution, and it will not be a surprise if, in the short term, we will be speaking about new European giants in the game.