5 most ridiculous transfer valuations in football right now
With the eccentric wheelings and dealings in the Far East at present coupled with the ridiculous £1.4 billion net spent by the Premier League clubs this campaign so far, there’s no doubt money is becoming rooted at the heart of the beautiful game.
Wealthy clubs from the Chinese Super League are forking out more dosh than they know what to do with. Smaller clubs are developing a dangerous over-independence on big offers coming in, meaning teams are spending more than usual. A player valued at just £5 million two years ago would now cost you triple, if not quadruple that sum.
To put it into context, fourteen years ago in 2003, Cristiano Ronaldo cost Manchester United £12.24 million, rendering him the most expensive teenager in English football history at the time; it was a modest fee for an explosive talent. Rewind to 2017 and the January transfer window just gone and Crystal Palace splashed out £14 million on full-back Patrick Van Aanholt, a barely comparable addition.
This is surely evidence enough that farcical finance is taking its stranglehold of modern football and it’s not only affecting transfers that have already gone through, but other clubs are now acknowledging this ludicrous inflation and themselves bumping up the valuations of mediocre talents to astronomical asking prices.
Alternatively, there are some individuals of stellar ability which clubs aren’t asking enough for, reiterating that multiple valuations are seriously off-par at both ends of the scale. Here’s a look at five of the most ridiculous ones right now
#1 Moussa Dembele – Celtic - £40 million – Too High
Realistic Value: £20 million
It’s easy to jump onto the back of the roaring Dembele bandwagon; the 20-year-old Frenchman is ripping up the SPL this season, with his hat-trick last Saturday taking him to 12 goals and four assists for the season. He embodies blistering pace, strength on and off the ball and a fiery final finish and in an attempt to reinforce an already mouth-watering frontline this summer, Antonio Conte is rumoured to be lining up a bid for the former Fulham man.
Celtic have explicitly demanded £40 million from Chelsea for the youngster and there are countless problems with such a price-tag. Firstly, by simply employing logic and objectivity, two traits absent from the heating transfer hub at present, we can see that, according to ‘Transfermarkt’, the official valuation of the player is significantly below that at just £2.55 million. Granted, Chelsea may need to pay a little more to tempt Celtic into the sale but £40 million is still a bizarre figure.
Dembele is young and, although he has the potential to be a top-class player, he needs more than a couple of seasons in, mediocre divisions to warrant such a hefty fee. Celtic are flying high at the top of the SPL and he’s receiving plenty of service against very average sides. A switch to the Premier League and all of that could very well change.