There can be no expense spared where owners and backers of the biggest teams throw money at those players who impressed on the stages of the Champions League and European Championships to either entice them to a new club or prevent them from being wooed by others.
This meat market is all well and good for those clubs with seemingly bottomless pockets although the record value of TV contracts makes even the highest player investments look a bit like spare cash transactions.
The final few fixtures of the 2015 to 2016 season saw a dramatic conclusion to the Premier League.
Could Leicester City, the most unlikely league leaders and Champions in waiting hold off the assault at the top of the table?
Who would drop out of the most lucrative league in the world to spend some time in the second tier and suffer all of the angst and financial contraction that goes with relegation?
What would become of the three newly promoted teams from the Championship in the millionaires playground?
One of the new kids on the block is my home town team, Hull City.
They had two, two season flirtations in the Premier League from 2008 to 2010 before slipping back to the very competitive proving ground of the Championship and another yo-yo promotion and relegation in 2013 to 2014.
In an exciting Play-Off Final at Wembley in May 2016 a 1-0 win over Yorkshire rivals Sheffield Wednesday saw a third uplift to the top tier.
It was a bonus for the team and the population of Hull meaning a top flight experience to further enhance the status of UK City of Culture in 2017.
Everything looked bright and promising but then a gradual unravelling began.
The Owner decided to seek a buyer.
This involved implementing a Fans Membership Scheme where longstanding concessions for the young and senior were affected. Cynics saw this as a manipulation of the revenues to make the balance sheet look good.
The Manager, the respected former player Steve Bruce was the subject of much speculation over whether he would stay or go. He was linked to the England National Team Manager position as well as other vacancies in the game.
No new players were signed although three good regulars departed.
The mileage covered in pre-season matches was amongst the lowest in the Premier League starting line-up.
Hull City were rapidly becoming a bit of a joke and pundits were fairly consistent in their predictions along the lines of "if ever a club deserved to be relegated through a lack of activity it is Hull".
Then Steve Bruce resigned. The club was in meltdown.
The caretaker Manager, Mike Phelan, a former assistant to Alex Ferguson at Manchester United was urged to pick up points as quickly as possible to have any chance of a permanent appointment, if indeed he wanted it or the Owners had any commitment to the Club beyond the beauty parade of their sales pitch to overseas investors.
A further and rather ironic twist to the story had been in the release of the new season's fixtures.
The opening game would be a home tie against no less than Leicester City.
Theirs had been a 90 day world tour and non-stop party in direct contrast to the torrid uncertainty which afflicted Hull City.
The match was today.
Fans had a number of protests planned against the Owner both inside and out of the Stadium and an attendance some 4000 below capacity for a high ranking game was a reflection of a further stay-away element of the supporter base.
Being the first match of the 2016 to 2017 Premier League with a 12.30 kick-off there was a live TV and media coverage. It was the revelation of the previous season against the no-hopers. Hull City could only muster a squad of 13 players to face the Champions.
My home town team showed great character and resilience over the 96 minutes of the match, taking the lead on half time before Leicester City equalised with a disputed penalty in the first minute after the restart.
This could have knocked the confidence of a beleagured Hull until Robert Snodgrass, cited as a player desperate to impress sent a thunderbolt into the bottom corner of the opponents goal.
In all the home team outplayed Leicester.
I look forward to watching the extended highlights on tonight's Match of the Day on BBC 1, an historic broadcast in itself being the first time a presenter has appeared in his underpants.
The following screen shot gives an all over warm feeling, perhaps a long way from that endured by Gary Lineker in a draughty TV studio somewhere in the UK.
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