LONDON (AP):

For the final months of 2015, clubs in continental Europe can relax: English clubs cannot plunder their top talent until January.

By the time the summer transfer window closed on Tuesday, English topflight clubs had blown £870 million (US$1.3 billion) on players, more than double any other European league. And £585 million (US$896 million) of that lavish English outlay was to entice foreign clubs to part with valued assets, according to accountancy firm Deloitte.

"Without a doubt, England has become the place to be playing," Bobby Barnes, European president of international players' union, FIFPro, told The Associated Press yesterday. "The biggest transfer fees and the biggest salaries are being paid in England, so the top players will try to come."

In the last Deloitte ranking of teams by revenue, all 20 Premier League clubs were in the top 40 globally, such is the gulf in the price of showing English matches on television compared with their European counterparts.

As a result, even finishing bottom of the Premier League earned Queens Park Rangers (QPR) around $100 million from the Premier League last season and that figure could soar by a third when the new TV deals starts next year. Relegated clubs are also entitled to four years of so-called "parachute payments" to soften the hard landing of relegation to the second tier.

The figure for QPR compares with around $80 million that Bayern Munich, which has won the last three German titles, expect to earn in Bundesliga TV cash this season.