5 players whose transfer values are greater than market values of some top European clubs
High valued players are not very often worth the hype or the amount of money that is involved in their transfers. Of course, exceptions do exist. However, the ridiculously high amount of money being currently exchanged by clubs over players at present is a sign of how far football has become commercialised.
While some players definitely command respect and are completely justified by their talent, there are still others who turn out to be inconsistent, living only off brand value. This commercial development of football is concentrated to only a few leagues and the top tiered clubs in these leagues.
Smaller clubs with days of glory long gone may actually be more affordable than some of the players and their huge transfer values.
We look at 5 players and the massive money involved in the biggest transfers of their career and 5 clubs that could have been bought for a less or similar amount of money.
#1 Stuttgart and Angel Di Maria
Although he was an above average player during his time at Real Madrid, Di Maria's value based on his skill dropped rapidly after a season at Manchester United as he failed to impress the crowds and the critics alike. His transfer fee when he came to Manchester United was a little more than 71 million Euros making this amount the highest ever paid for a player by a British Club.
His value dropped drastically and United were able to sell him to Paris Saint-German for just 52 million Euros. A new experiment of playing him out of position went disastrously wrong for erstwhile United manager Louis van Gaal and as such Di Maria's form suffered, reflecting in the team's general performance. Nevertheless, he turned out to be one of the worst signings for Manchester United last season.
Compare this to the historical club of Stuttgart which was one of the original Bundesligists with five Bundesliga titles to their name and boasting of names like Jurgen Klinsmann to have have been associated with them. True, the club went through a period of financial loss during the time period of 1975 to 2000 but even after recovering a period of extremely high debt, the club bounced back to be the runners up of Bundesliga in the 2002-03 season.
Players like Mario Gomez and Sami Khedira have played for this historically grand club. The club has been valued at 49.6 million Euros.