Total spending of European big five leagues in summer transfer window in 2018 continued to grow to a record high, a FIFA analysis report said Wednesday.

Since October 2010, all transfers of professional footballers between clubs of different FIFA member associations must be processed via FIFA's International Transfer Matching System (ITMS).

According to the report, based on data provided by ITMS, total amount of money spent by clubs from England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain in this year's summer transfer window increased to 4.21 billion U.S. dollars, 6.6 percent higher than that in the summer of 2017 (3.95 billion dollars), marking the sixth consecutive increase in incoming transfer activity by the big five leagues.

In 2018, 182 of the 211 FIFA member associations had one of their two registration periods open at some points between June 1 and Sept. 1, bringing the global spending to hit a record high 5.44 billion dollars in these three months.

England was the most active association among the big five leagues with a total of over 1.44 billion dollars, while Italian clubs registered the largest increase of 74.7 percent in spending than the same period in 2017.