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Premier League clubs spent an eye-watering £115 MILLION on payments to agents in relation to deals that happened in the last two transfer windows according to official figures just released.

Four clubs spent eight-figure sums each, with Chelsea spending more than anyone - £16,7771,328 - followed by Liverpool on £14,308,444, Manchester City on £12,811,946 and Tottenham on £10,983,011.

To put these astonishing sums into perspective, those four clubs alone have spent as much on middle-men payments in the past year than every club in League Two spend on their entire wage bills in a season.

Chelsea spent £32 million on Diego Costa in the summer... but his 11 goals may prove that he was worth it

Crystal Palace supporters unveiled a banner aimed at Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich in October

Burnley spent the least on agents, with £711,024, and then Leicester City on £1,608,418. Crystal Palace, Hull, Aston VIlla and Southampton all spent less than £3m.

The accompanying table shows the payments made by each Premier League club to agents in the period 1 October 2013 to 30 September 2014. The amounts shown include payments made by clubs on behalf of players.

The Premier League has been publishing agents' fees in the name of transparency since the 2009-10 season onwards.

The figures give an insight into the considerable sums that middle-men take out of the game for brokering deals.

Chelsea may well argue that paying agents helped them to a stellar transfer window in which they signed stars including Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas - and still made a small PROFIT on their dealings! (Before agents' fees).

Liverpool spent £117m on players including the Southampton trio of Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren and Rickie Lambert.

Liverpool, like Manchester City, also bought a player with third-party ownership issues that needed to be resolved and inevitably needed to pay fees to help sort that out. Lazar Markovic was the player in question for Liverpool. At Manchester City, it was Eliaquim Mangala, who cost the club around £40m to three third-party owners (contrary to the widely reported but erroneous figure of £32m).

Mangala's agent in that deal was 'super agent' Jorge Mendes. He is the epitome of the monied middle-man. As Sportsmail exclusively revealed earlier this year, Mendes has traded players worth more than £1 billion in his career - and pocketed fees of £100m-plus in commissions - including from several Premier League clubs for deals included in today's new figures.

Adam Lallana poses with a Liverpool shirt after completing his £23m move from Southampton in the summer

Burnley and Leicester bought Lukas Jutkiewicz (left) and Leonardo Ulloa (right) respectively in the summer, but they make up the bottom two in the payments to agents table