5 most expensive Indian national football team players
The Indian national football team is on the rise. With eight wins from their last eight international matches, Stephen Constantine’s Blue Tigers are on a roll like never before.
Amid that and the confusion surrounding the domestic Indian football structure, Indian footballers have slowly grown into the modern methods of the beautiful game. With enhanced facilities and boosted finances, the day isn’t far when Indian football stars will be talked in the same breath as the likes of Wayne Rooney and Neymar in world football.
According to data from the popular transfermarkt.com website, the market valuations of Indian footballers are, understandably, pretty low. It is not a surprise that Indian captain Sunil Chhetri is valued in the footballing world almost 500 times lesser than Argentina’s Lionel Messi.
Such are the dynamics of player valuations that Indian players will require quite a bit of time to reach the levels of their European or South American counterparts. Having said that, Indian football stars don’t come for peanuts either and here are the five Indian national team regulars with the highest market valuations.
#1 Sunil Chhetri — 275,000 euros
The Indian captain is also the country’s all-time record goalscorer in international matches with 54 goals. Chhetri sits just below Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi and Clint Dempsey on the list of top active international goalscorers, hence it doesn’t come as a shock to see him top this list.
According to transfermarkt.com, Chhetri is currently valued at 275,000 euros. This valuation is from December last year and as the Bengaluru FC forward has only played in the I-League, Federation Cup and the group stage of the AFC Cup 2017 after ISL-3, there has been little variation in his market value since.