You can learn a lot about a soccer league from its transfer spending.
According to FIFA, the top six soccer associations by net transfer spending in 2017 were England, Germany, China, France, Italy and the United States. Five of those make perfect sense.
The Premier League, the Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and Serie A are four of the top five leagues in the world, where clubs regularly pay huge sums to acquire the best players. China’s Super League recently tried to spend its way — some say recklessly — into becoming a global player. And then there is Major League Soccer.