When Neymar signed for Paris Saint-Germain from Barcelona in August 2017, for a whopping £200m (around R3,5 billion), football transfer fees really went bonkers.
PSG then also forked out the dough for Kylian Mbappe, in a deal that now looks like shrewd business, and the idea of getting a player on the cheap all but flew out the window.
When you consider what an impact the likes of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo can have on a football club, those fees become somewhat more understandable, but neither feature in the top six of the ‘most valuable footballer in the world’ list.
Of course, that is only to do with their age and resale value, because both of those players would be the first on any team sheet around the world.
According to CIES Football Observatory’s algorithm, which has calculated the transfer value of the players in Europe’s top five leagues, the current top dog is the French World Cup winner Mbappe, who just turned 20 in December of last year.
In second spot is Harry Kane, who keeps on banging in the goals for Spurs, with Brazilian superstar Neymar in third.
Here’s the full top 20 – which goes Club (league) / Age / End of contract / National team:
Yes, that’s Romelu Lukaku at number eight – class is permanent, even though he’s in the midst of a horrid season. I’d suggest you read his life story before you’re too critical.
We’ll also chuck in numbers 21 to 40:
I can already hear the Liverpool fans fuming that Virgil van Dijk is valued at less than Manchester City’s Aymeric Laporte, and I feel the same way.
Also, Kante in 29th place is a travesty.
Here’s a little on how the values are calculated via NewsAU:
CIES uses a complex method of working out how much a player is worth, taking into consideration 2,241 transfers over the past eight seasons as well as variables such as age, position, league, contract length and nationality…
Some of the notable omissions from the list are Real Madrid star and Ballon d’Or winner Luka Modric [below] and Manchester United goalkeeper David De Gea…
Manuel Neuer, Edinson Cavani, Marcelo, Alexis Sanchez and Lazio prodigy Sergej Milinkovic-Savic all miss out as well.
The fact that Modric doesn’t appear, just months after having won the Ballon d’Or, is pretty telling, although he will turn 34 this year.
You can see the full list of the top 100 most valuable players here.
[source:newsau]
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