Stop Worrying About Transfers Fees

By: Daryl | July 2nd, 2009

Real Madrid’s €215m (and counting) spending spree seems to have Michel Platini a bit worried. In a recent interview with French sports daily L’Equipe, the UEFA President said he found the mountains of money difficult to comprehend, especially the Cristiano Ronaldo transfer, but admitted there was nothing he could do about it.

“Personally, I can’t understand that you can spend 90 million euros on a player,” Platini said. “But I remember the transfer of (Diego) Maradona from Barcelona to Naples (in 1984). It must have been for the equivalent of 6.5 million euros and people already found it indecent.

“I think there’s something not normal in there. I don’t like all that, and even less the fact that today, contracts are being signed only to be breached. But then again, if the clubs have the money, what can I do ?”

The answer is of course: Nothing. So my suggestion is that we all stop worrying about the big numbers.

Transfer fees have always been ridiculous, going back to before many people reading this were even born. When Trevor Francis became England’s first £1 million player in 1979, that was already insane. How can one nasally voiced man be worth a million pounds? And how can one stocky little Argentinean fellow be worth €6.5m just five years later?

Thirty years later, Cristiano Ronaldo is eighty time more expensive than Trevor Francis. But if £1 million was a crazy number (and it was) then £80 million is just another crazy number. Once you get into paying millions of pounds for individual players, it really makes no difference how many millions you spend.

Some Related Stories:

Category: World Football

« David Beckham’s Biggest Challenge Yet: Making Landon Donovan Like Him | Home | Blurry, Possibly Doctored, Video Of Cristiano Ronaldo Kicking A Car Window & The Loch Ness Monster. »

The Offside RSS Feeds

lefutur

i think platini is absolutely right to criticize the state of modern club football, its quickly losing its soul. of course those fans with the billionaire owners at their clubs are going to attack Platini and call him all sorts of evil names. its very similar to those people who attacked MLK or other leaders who were only trying to level the playing field.
Madridista

Does anyone have some numbers to work with? Something tells me that Liverpool has more debt as a percentage of its revenue than Real Madrid, even after our spending spree. And while the transfer fees look indecent, the debt is likely to be a lot more manageable for Real Madrid (or Barcelona, if they wanted to spend like that) than for any of the Big 4. Not sure about Chelsea.

There are clubs that are financially in much worse positions. Valencia, for one. Pérez doesn't own Real Madrid, he only runs the club. All that money is being charged to Real Madrid's account, not to Pérez's, he's barred from using his own money to run the club. If he finishes this term as President with a minimal amount of debt, that will be more than some other clubs' presidents/owners have managed.
Sam

Bottom line is everyone in the world sucks.
Lowe

Am I going to be one of few who will not care when Real Madrid ends up bankrupt from being a little silly with their money? If they can't run the team as a business, then they deserve to go down in flames. And that will be almost as funny as them spending all that money and finishing second to Barca.
john

That's a fair comment, especially from a fan's perspective, Marlon, but still...

Part of the argument is that these players are being overvalued - too much is being paid, thus inflating transfer fees across the board. Okay. But if that's true, than donn't the 'sellers,' the ones taking the money for the player, stand to benefit the most? With the oodles received for the outgoing galactico, shouldn't a team be able to stock itself with plenty of talent? If not, perhaps the player really was worth the obscene fee after all (though in most cases, Ronaldo's especially, I doubt it).
wob

It's better to not worry about things you can't do anything about.
Marlon

It's easier to not be worried about this kind of thing if you support one of teams throwing money at players. It's not very satisfying when they are trying to pull apart your squad.
goose

the only transfer fee that should outrage people is 18 mil. for glen johnson.
lefutur

the numbers themselves are insignificant...but what does matter is that some clubs are being unscrupulous with their spending while other clubs are being more fair about it. shady billionaire owners, debt without oversight, dubious management...these are all concerns that hurt the sport.

Platini is right to be worried.

Football is supposed to be egalitarian, not elitist.
Flippy

http://graficos.lainformacion....
clearly something is not normal