The current market prices..

RedStarUnited

Full Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2008
Messages
8,310
For the first time in my football supporting life, I have no idea what the going rate is for players. Growing up, you could always kind of know the price should be for a player but now? I am clueless.

The average player price seems to start at £30/35m now. Teenage sensations seem to be at around £80m, and bonafide world class players in contract are £100m+.

The scary thing for me is, out of all the 100m euros + transfers, I cant think of many that have worked out. Given this list:

Neymar to PSG - 222m - Flopped
Mbappe to PSG - 180m - Flopped (as in nothing major was won) *
Dembele to Barca - 140m - Flopped
Coutinho to Barca - 135m - Flopped
Jao Felix to A Madrid - 122m - Flopped
Enzo Fernandez to Chelsea - 122m - Jurys still out
A Griezman to Barca - 120m - Flopped
Graelish to City - 117m - I think Jurys still out
Ronaldo to Juve - 117m - Flopped **
Hazard to Madrid - 115m - Flopped
Lukaku to Chelsea. - 113m - Flopped
Pogba to United - 105m - Flopped

[Edit]
* You could say only Mbappes has retained his value and thats a lot to do with the fact that he was transferred for that crazy amount so young.

** Signed to win the CL
 
Last edited:
Reminds me of the housing market in London, there won't be any value in the transfer market unless the entire system is regulated somehow. But even then they'll be behind closed doors agreements and shell companies in the players family's name etc. It's going to get worse. Remember just a few seasons ago under Ole in 2021 Rice was supposedly quoted for 60 million. The pendulum will keep swinging more investment into the sport, more inflated fees, TV rights etc.
 
More money coming into football = higher transfer fees and wages

There's nothing inherently "good" or "bad" about it. Not sure why some are so worried.
 
Big Ben Foster said:
More money coming into football = higher transfer fees and wages

There's nothing inherently "good" or "bad" about it. Not sure why some are so worried.
Click to expand...
Yup. With Premier League always growing and on course to dethrone La Liga, adding additional Saudi / Qatar etc. investments, the prices surely not getting any lower.
 
Redstain said:
Reminds me of the housing market in London, there won't be any value in the transfer market unless the entire system is regulated somehow. But even then they'll be behind closed doors agreements and shell companies in the players family's name etc. It's going to get worse. Remember just a few seasons ago under Ole in 2021 Rice was supposedly quoted for 60 million. The pendulum will keep swinging more investment into the sport, more inflated fees, TV rights etc.
Click to expand...

Good example there with London. Saudi clubs havent even started shopping properly yet,
When they do it will have the same effect as the Oligarchs and Sheikh buying up everything in Central London.
 
I wouldn’t call Dembele a flop.

they overpaid? Sure, but he’s quality.

anyway I don’t know why you’re acting like there’s anything new here. Arsenal paid £72m for Pépé back in 2019, Chelsea paid the same for Kepa in 2018. The market has been bananas for a long time now. This summers fees are anything but surprising.
 
Mbappe is no flop. It's like saying Kane has been a flop at Spurs (if they actually paid a fee for him).

I'd also argue Pogba was not a flop. He was underwhelming but not a complete failure (we won things with him and he scored important goals at a lower level).

You're also comparing prices across a decade, all in all the comparison is pretty flawed on all levels.
 
Someone said:
I wouldn't say the money coming in matches the transfer market inflation.
Click to expand...
I would be interested in seeing how spending by PL clubs on players as a % of their revenues has trended over the years. I would hypothesize that, aside from the COVID-impacted years, it hasn't changed much over the last decade or so.
 
Rightnr said:
Mbappe is no flop. It's like saying Kane has been a flop at Spurs (if they actually paid a fee for him).

I'd also argue Pogba was not a flop. He was underwhelming but not a complete failure (we won things with him and he scored important goals at a lower level).

You're also comparing prices across a decade, all in all the comparison is pretty flawed on all levels.
Click to expand...

They didnt buy Mbappe to keep on winning the French League, like I said the only reason he maybe isnt a flop is because of his age therefore meaning you can still get a good price for him.

I wasn't comparing prices I just noted that the super expensive players have a pretty high failure rate. And yet thats where the prices are going.
 
RedStarUnited said:
They didnt buy Mbappe to keep on winning the French League, like I said the only reason he maybe isnt a flop is because of his age therefore meaning you can still get a good price for him.

I wasn't comparing prices I just noted that the super expensive players have a pretty high failure rate. And yet thats where the prices are going.
Click to expand...
Awhile back someone posted transfer spend as a proportion of revenue through the years and it had hardly changed.

It's about the ever-increasing money in the game, mostly from TV and recently from overseas TV rights for the PL, as the domestic goose has been well and truly cooked.
 
Big Ben Foster said:
More money coming into football = higher transfer fees and wages

There's nothing inherently "good" or "bad" about it. Not sure why some are so worried.
Click to expand...

I'd say it's bad because it becomes unaffordable for more clubs to compete. Premier league clubs pay so much now they can't really sell players to anyone other than each other or the Saudis.
 
RedStarUnited said:
They didnt buy Mbappe to keep on winning the French League, like I said the only reason he maybe isnt a flop is because of his age therefore meaning you can still get a good price for him.

I wasn't comparing prices I just noted that the super expensive players have a pretty high failure rate. And yet thats where the prices are going.
Click to expand...

It's interesting that Real Madrid have completely changed their transfer strategy. They're aiming for younger players like Camavinga, Vinicius and Valverde because even they know the big fees are stupid. We should do the same. For example, we could rinse the Saudis for 200m for Højlund if they ever offer it and then buy the next big thing.
 
I wouldn’t say Neymar, Mbappe or Ronaldo were flops. Agree with the rest though.
 
Someone said:
I wouldn't say the money coming in matches the transfer market inflation.
Click to expand...

Probably because a lot of the money in the market is from oil and governments. Not actually football. Sports like the NBA and NFL are offering massive salaries because its in line with the broadcasting money. Football is offering this much because it's coming from outside the game.
 
Is this still a thing?

People pay to watch football, either on TV or at the game, prices rise consistently yet people still find a way to argue the price of a player.

That player is worth whatever the buying club is willing to pay. Simple as.
Doesn't mean that player is worth that amount, but simply they have been brought for that amount.
A player is now an asset, they are commodities. They can either make money or create money.
And that's all there is too it really.

Anyone who thinks otherwise deluding themselves
 
I think that view is distorted by the activity of the (ever decreasing in number) top clubs. Looking at Transfermarkt there's maybe... Two dozens teams that ever paid 50m€ or more ? And among those a dozen clubs account for the vast majority of transactions.

AC Milan never paid over 42m€ for a player and 13 times over 30m€.
Inter spent a little more often over 40 (and has Lukaku as a massive outlier) but likewise only has ten arrivals at 30m€ or more. Still made the CL's final this year though (granted maybe a fluke because the whole current format is working for the wealthiest clubs).

Both Milan clubs are ruined aristocrats left behind by the tides of capital concentration a decade or so ago. But my point is that most of football operates at a much smaller scale. It's true prices have increased across the board for everyone. You pay more, and sometimes for younger talent. But it's nowhere as volatile as what the top clubs are doing and probably mostly in line with increased revenue.

As much ink we waste on discussing what the "fair value" of player X, Y or Z is in the market I don't think you can really reconcile all the different layers of transfer economy into a coherent whole.
 
Part of the issue is thinking guys like Neymar or Mbappe are flops.

You paid record money for players who gave you undoubtedly world class performances. Is it CL domination only to determine if they are a success or not? Individually they provided performances that almost nobody in world football could match so that's not a flop for me. Same with Ronaldo to Juve. Pogba was bought by a disaster club and then just wasted by the club. World class player but used incorrectly in failing teams with mediocre managers before injuries killed his own level. Then yes, others on that list were just dumb purchases by clubs who paid big money for aging stars in positions they didn't need them.

The bigger thing here is that most football clubs are incredibly dumb with their transfers, buy players they don't need all the time, and then are confused when it doesn't work. Address the positions you have problems in with the right type of players and the chance of failure is massively reduced. We are finally doing this.
 
Plastic Evra said:
I think that view is distorted by the activity of the (ever decreasing in number) top clubs. Looking at Transfermarkt there's maybe... Two dozens teams that ever paid 50m€ or more ? And among those a dozen clubs account for the vast majority of transactions.

AC Milan never paid over 42m€ for a player and 13 times over 30m€.
Inter spent a little more often over 40 (and has Lukaku as a massive outlier) but likewise only has ten arrivals at 30m€ or more. Still made the CL's final this year though (granted maybe a fluke because the whole current format is working for the wealthiest clubs).

Both Milan clubs are ruined aristocrats left behind by the tides of capital concentration a decade or so ago. But my point is that most of football operates at a much smaller scale. It's true prices have increased across the board for everyone. You pay more, and sometimes for younger talent. But it's nowhere as volatile as what the top clubs are doing and probably mostly in line with increased revenue.

As much ink we waste on discussing what the "fair value" of player X, Y or Z is in the market I don't think you can really reconcile all the different layers of transfer economy into a coherent whole.
Click to expand...
You deserve promotion just for this realiisation. We have full members that seem to think the real world works like Football Manager. The types that probably think you can offer a player a 6 year deal on 10k a week rising to 150k a week after 100 international appearences. Apparently everything can be distilled into a perfect tranfer fee calculation they've made in their heads rather than being the glorified cattle market for individual commodites that it is - an exchange between buyer and seller.
 
Neymar and Mbappé fees were clearly meant as statements of wealth by an owner for whom the club is only one part of a larger operation, I don't think there's any rational framing to judge them purely on sporting terms. QSI was never planning on getting an equivalent direct financial profit out of them (especially with the wages and bonus). They actually might have if Mbappé accepted that Saudi offer !

Mbappé is maybe the player of that list that retained the most his value post his 100m transfer, actually... at least so far.

Edit : I'd say a lot of those (and some of the records in early aughts) were also statements of some sort. Atletico probably wanting to show they were one of the big boys, for instance. Real and Barca locked in maximalist policies maybe to pander to socios and certainly to build that image of the very elite clubs. Bayern to an extent resisted that trend a little bit though that might change with Kane. You have to flaunt wealth to sit at that table now.
 
Last edited:
RedStarUnited said:
For the first time in my football supporting life, I have no idea what the going rate is for players. Growing up, you could always kind of know the price should be for a player but now? I am clueless.

The average player price seems to start at £30/35m now. Teenage sensations seem to be at around £80m, and bonafide world class players in contract are £100m+.

The scary thing for me is, out of all the 100m euros + transfers, I cant think of many that have worked out. Given this list:

Neymar to PSG - 222m - Flopped
Mbappe to PSG - 180m - Flopped (as in nothing major was won)
Dembele to Barca - 140m - Flopped
Coutinho to Barca - 135m - Flopped
Jao Felix to A Madrid - 122m - Flopped
Enzo Fernandez to Chelsea - 122m - Jurys still out
A Griezman to Barca - 120m - Flopped
Graelish to City - 117m - I think Jurys still out
Ronaldo to Juve - 117m - Flopped
Hazard to Madrid - 115m - Flopped
Lukaku to Chelsea. - 113m - Flopped
Pogba to United - 105m - Flopped

You could say only Mbappes has retained his value and thats a lot to do with the fact that he was transferee for that crazy amount so young.
Click to expand...

Neymar, Mbappe, Ronaldo weren't flops. Dembele, Pogba, Grealish are borderline. Coutinho, Griezmmann, Hazard, Lukaku, Joao Felix - yes, those are clear total flops.
About half the total big transfers.
 
RedStarUnited said:
For the first time in my football supporting life, I have no idea what the going rate is for players. Growing up, you could always kind of know the price should be for a player but now? I am clueless.

The average player price seems to start at £30/35m now. Teenage sensations seem to be at around £80m, and bonafide world class players in contract are £100m+.

The scary thing for me is, out of all the 100m euros + transfers, I cant think of many that have worked out. Given this list:

Neymar to PSG - 222m - Flopped
Mbappe to PSG - 180m - Flopped (as in nothing major was won)
Dembele to Barca - 140m - Flopped
Coutinho to Barca - 135m - Flopped
Jao Felix to A Madrid - 122m - Flopped
Enzo Fernandez to Chelsea - 122m - Jurys still out
A Griezman to Barca - 120m - Flopped
Graelish to City - 117m - I think Jurys still out
Ronaldo to Juve - 117m - Flopped
Hazard to Madrid - 115m - Flopped
Lukaku to Chelsea. - 113m - Flopped
Pogba to United - 105m - Flopped

You could say only Mbappes has retained his value and thats a lot to do with the fact that he was transferee for that crazy amount so young.
Click to expand...
You have an extrodinarily broad definition for a flop. Mbappe is PSG's top scorer, Ronaldo won two league titles and a golden boot at Juve, Dembele had a tough start but is now a regular starter for Barca and Xavi loves him, Grealish wad a key player in a treble winning team, and Neymar and Pogba, while much maligned, still made regular key contributions to their teams and were unlucky with injuries. I think the problem you're having is expecting s players transfer fee can/should only be based on their on-field contributions, when in fact it's down to a number of other factors as well, including commercial value, the relative strength/financial health of each team, agent involvement, availability of that type of player in the market, etc.
 
RedStarUnited said:
For the first time in my football supporting life, I have no idea what the going rate is for players. Growing up, you could always kind of know the price should be for a player but now? I am clueless.

The average player price seems to start at £30/35m now. Teenage sensations seem to be at around £80m, and bonafide world class players in contract are £100m+.

The scary thing for me is, out of all the 100m euros + transfers, I cant think of many that have worked out. Given this list:

Neymar to PSG - 222m - Flopped
Mbappe to PSG - 180m - Flopped (as in nothing major was won)
Dembele to Barca - 140m - Flopped
Coutinho to Barca - 135m - Flopped
Jao Felix to A Madrid - 122m - Flopped
Enzo Fernandez to Chelsea - 122m - Jurys still out
A Griezman to Barca - 120m - Flopped
Graelish to City - 117m - I think Jurys still out
Ronaldo to Juve - 117m - Flopped
Hazard to Madrid - 115m - Flopped
Lukaku to Chelsea. - 113m - Flopped
Pogba to United - 105m - Flopped

You could say only Mbappes has retained his value and thats a lot to do with the fact that he was transferee for that crazy amount so young.
Click to expand...
I get your point but it seems your definition of "flopped" was kind of way too harsh. For example:

Mbappe to PSG - scored 212 goals in 260 games for 6 seasons, 12 trophies won
Ronaldo to Juventus - scored 101 goals in 134 games for 3 seasons, 5 trophies won

I think thats a very good return of goals and trophies won, those are about elite level individual stats and team trophies success, so its really unrealistic to expect more. If you regard lack of CL trophies means flopped, then Man City players were all flopped in previous 5 seasons, prior to their CL success last season. And Messi was also flopped at club level in his previous 8 years. That's kind of weird take. Those are literally some of the best players in the world in recent years.

Neymar to PSG - 118 goals in 173 games for 6 seasons, 12 trophies won

His average stats/performances and trophies return is actually not bad at all. Now regarding the size of his fee, and the extended length of his injuries, you may say he is flopped. But same can be said for L.Ronaldo at Inter too, in fact even more so. Would you say L.Ronaldo was a massive flop in Italy? Didn't he has one of his GOAT seasons there, before his injuries?

The rest I would agree though.
 
Last edited:
Most clubs can’t even afford it. Even the majority of Premier League clubs are making huge losses. Something should be done by the likes of the FA but everyone is swimming in pound notes so they don’t care.
 
RedStarUnited said:
For the first time in my football supporting life, I have no idea what the going rate is for players. Growing up, you could always kind of know the price should be for a player but now? I am clueless.

The average player price seems to start at £30/35m now. Teenage sensations seem to be at around £80m, and bonafide world class players in contract are £100m+.

The scary thing for me is, out of all the 100m euros + transfers, I cant think of many that have worked out. Given this list:

Neymar to PSG - 222m - Flopped
Mbappe to PSG - 180m - Flopped (as in nothing major was won)
Dembele to Barca - 140m - Flopped
Coutinho to Barca - 135m - Flopped
Jao Felix to A Madrid - 122m - Flopped
Enzo Fernandez to Chelsea - 122m - Jurys still out
A Griezman to Barca - 120m - Flopped
Graelish to City - 117m - I think Jurys still out
Ronaldo to Juve - 117m - Flopped
Hazard to Madrid - 115m - Flopped
Lukaku to Chelsea. - 113m - Flopped
Pogba to United - 105m - Flopped

You could say only Mbappes has retained his value and thats a lot to do with the fact that he was transferee for that crazy amount so young.
Click to expand...

What you're seeing is that major transfers usually fail, that is nothing new. Most of those players thrived in an environment and don't do so well when moved. Only a handful make a smooth transition between clubs and leagues.

I think PSG have failed Neymar and Mbappe as much as they failed PSG, but none of them were ever in it for the right reasons.
 
SirAF said:
Ronaldo scored 101 goals in three seasons at Juventus :lol: Hardly a flop.
Click to expand...
Andersonson said:
Yes its an insane take by OP
Click to expand...

Flop in the context of what the signing was meant to bring to the team. Juve had won 7 or 8 titles before Ronaldo arrived, Im assuming they bought him to go to the next level and win a CL. They didn't pay over 100m for a 32 year old just to continue doing the same thing.
 
RedStarUnited said:
Flop in the context of what the signing was meant to bring to the team. Juve had won 7 or 8 titles before Ronaldo arrived, Im assuming they bought him to go to the next level and win a CL. They didn't pay over 100m for a 32 year old just to continue doing the same thing.
Click to expand...

That is a fair point, but even so it is still crazy to label him flop. You can't "budget" on winning the CL regardless of any investment - it's a cup tournament.
 
The figures are probably hard to comprehend for the vast of majority of us because unless you're stinking rich then the sums of money involved in these transfers feel mind boggling. But in the context of billion dollar valued corporations these sums probably represent fair value.
 
RedIke said:
I don't know how it will be possible, but somehow things have to be reset. Sustainability will be a problem
Click to expand...
What does this even mean? Do you expect money to just stop flowing into football?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.