Why Kaka is Not the Most Expensive Footballer of All Time
By: Daryl | June 10th, 2009
Seems some in the English media are convinced that Kaka’s transfer to Real Madrid makes him the most expensive of all time. And going purely by £GBP, they’re completely correct.
Kaka’s €65m move from Milan to Real converts to about £55.5m (at current rate of €1 = £0.85). But Zinedine Zidane’s 2001 move from Juve cost Real €76m, which at the then exchange rate (€1 = £0.60, about) which worked out around £46m.
But in a place called reality, they’re 100% wrong.
Kaka may be the most expensive player of all time based on GBP exchange rates. But since both transfers were conducted 100% in euros (with a player going from an Italian team to a Spanish team), doesn’t that make the € to £ conversion completely irrelevant?
The fact that the pound did a spectacular nosedive recently shouldn’t make Kaka the most expensive player in the world. Especially when not a single £: changed hands.
Obviously the varying exchange rates presents all kinds of problems when calculating “the most expensive player of all time”. But I’m pretty sure that when one player cost €76m and the other €65m, then the player that cost over €10m more was the most expensive.
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Category: World Football
Tags: AC Milan, Euros, Kaka, most expensive player in the world, most expensive transfer of all time, pounds, Real Madrid, World Football, World Soccer, zinedine zidaneSubscribe
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Comments | Add your comment
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Inflation rate accounted for?
Posted from
United States
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Jose, If the inflation rate was accounted for zizou would just appear more expensive.
Posted from
United States -
The real way to figure this out would be to compare the fees with the GDP at the time in the nation of question. That’s how you could find true value.
We can all agree on the bottom line. It’s a lot of cash that’s not in our pockets.
Posted from
United States -
@jose
Inflation is never accounted for and that’s my biggest issue with this. Zidane’s transfer was 10 years ago. 10 years of inflation compounding at roughly 3% pa which is about 35%. So 10 years on we should add 35% to the zidane’s silly money thus getting a figure in excess of eur100mln
This is what (in today’s money) real paid for zidane
There was recently a book out saying that moratti senior wanted to get pele from santon around 1960 for the equivalent of euro5mln but considered that sum not to be moral.in todays money (at 3% which is probably a wrong inflation assumption over 50 years) that’s 22mln
Imagine getting (young) pele today for that money
Posted from
United States -
aj, I just understood why I failed Econ.
Posted from
United States -
That’s what I thought, the whole deal was done in Euro’s. Nothing to do with England so Zidane keeps his record…
Posted from
United Kingdom -
thank you for sabotaging football .
Posted from
United States -
Ronaldo’s fee has made the entire discussion academic.
Posted from
United States -
Not after inflation.
Posted from
United States -
LOL. Why are only ppl from the US comment this? And why are you so obsessed about the inflation, I wonder. (No need to answer, it just needed to be asked
Posted from
Portugal -
And why were all posts marked as posts from the US before I submitted mine?
Posted from
Portugal -
Still Ronaldo is not the most expensive player in the world. If we want to compare this transfer with Zidane’s transfer we must compare value of euro in 2001 and now.
The best way is to compare gold price in euro.
Since 2001 gold has doubled (2001 – less then 350euro/unce, 2009 – more then 700 euro/unce), so in that case 76 mln euro for Zidane is about 150 mln euro now.Posted from
Poland
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