The Most Expensive Signings of Summer ‘08, Halfway Through.

By: chris | January 1st, 2009

This isn’t a subjective rating, it’s merely the ten most expensive transfer fees by price of the summer 2008 throughout the world (read: Europe). Because I don’t feel like doing the pound to Euros conversion right now (and neither do Brits – bada boom), I’m going to leave it in the poundage the Daily Mail provided for us. How nice of them.

An interesting confirmation of something most already know: just because it’s expensive doesn’t make it a good buy.

1. Robinho, Real to Man City, £32.5m.
2. Dimitar Berbatov, Tottenham Hotspur to Manchester United, £30m (Plus Frazier Campbell loan.)
3. Daniel Alves, Sevilla to Barcelona, £25m.
4. Danny, Dynamo Moscow to Zenit St Petersburg, £24m.
5. Ricardo Quaresma, FC Porto to Inter Milan, £19.4m. (Plus Pele.)
6. Robbie Keane, Tottenham Hotspur to Liverpool, £19m.
7. Jô, CSKA Moscow to Manchester City, £19m.
8. Amauri, Palermo to Juventus, £18m. (Plus players.)
9. David Bentley, Blackburn Rovers to Tottenham Hotspur, £17.3m.
10. Ronaldinho, Barcelona to AC Milan, £16.5m.

Tottenham was wheeling and dealing like they were playing with monopoly money this summer, it seems.

Even though 4-5 months isn’t a large enough sample to properly assess a signing – whether they’re performing poorly or walking on water – it’s still worth a look. Fair enough to say that roughly half of these deals haven’t exactly panned out as hoped (jury’s out on Russia’s Danny Alves, but Zenit didn’t perform as well as hoped in either the league or the Champions League with a star studded roster).

What’s most important is that for guys like Quaresma, Jo & Bentley, they still have many years to grow into those transfer fees. Problem is, as we’ve seen so often in the past, they’ll most likely grow into them in another shirt. This isn’t a patient business. (Unless you’re employed by Massimo Moratti, which bodes well for Ricky Q. Just ask Adriano.)

The Daily Mail also rated these signings for their value, but one only needs to look at the Amauri ranking to get a decent gauge of its worth.

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Category: World Football

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Flippy

Daniel Alves is worth what was paid for them IMO. Amuari seems to be successful for Juve so I would say he was worth it, but I haven't watched Juve that much. And from what I've seen of Danny Alves he seems worth it as well. Many others seem to be overpriced (Berbatov is certainly not worth that much, nor is Bentley, Keane, and Robinho (but his owners are super rich so that one doesn't matter)). Quaresma and Jo are complete flopididoo. And Ronaldinho was maybe worth the amount of shirt sales and tickets and other merchandise plus the things he's done on the field, but AC Milan should buy someone who's not 30 (yes R80 is 30, he admitted that on his supposed "28" birthday).
Ranjeet

Best RB in Europe is Maicon,by a mile.
john

No surprise that Real Madrid is on the top of that list. But as the seller - now that's a shock. And that's their only appearance.
ish

our most expensive signing has been bosingwa who at the moment is probably the best rightback in england and would give dani alves a run for his money as best RB in europe.
Deco cost 8million but that we wont get back unless he transfers out just b4 he retires. Deco also has been struggling since the cold set in.
All in all chelsea is doing well with the transfers but maybe we should recall pizarro from loan..
Marco P.

Alex, hard to believe that Deco cost "only" £8.0m huh.
Alex

haha, there's no Chelsea. this is a cuase for celebreation (O.O)