Serie A No other owner spent more in first year

Not only did Li Yanghong pay 740 million euros to take control of AC Milan earlier this year, but he has overseen a summer of major spending as he aims to return the Italian giant to the promised land of the Champions League.

As the cash has been splashed, he has become the football club owner to have spent the most in his first year ... and there is still a month and a half left before transfer deadline day.

With Alvaro Morata, or an alternative star striker, and Renato Sanches both on the wanted list, the total outlay could escalate to much higher than the current 209.5m euros.

Until now, Roman Abramovich had held that honour, having forked out 167.5m euros during his first year in charge of Chelsea, bringing the likes of Damien Duff, Hernan Crespo and Juan Sebastian Veron.

It's not just in the red and black half of the city that cheques are being written, as Inter have also been taken over by Chinese investors, in their case by Zhang Jindong.

In spending 157.8m euros last summer, he slots in at fourth on the list of the biggest ever first years of spending.

Just sneaking ahead of him on the podium is Monaco's Dmitri Rybolovev, who arrived to the tune of some marquee signings in 2013, while coming in behind Jindong are Manchester City's Mansour bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Valencia's Peter Lim, PSG's Nasser Al-Khelaifi and Roma's Thomas DiBenedetto.

They spent 157.3m, 143.7m, 107.1m and 91.2m euros in their first years in charge of their respective clubs.