Gabrielle Marcotti is one of the more thought provoking journalists writing about football. In his latest article in The Times, he tells the story of a foreign club who tried to sell a player in England. They were asking for €15m, but were prepared to go as low as €8m.
Then a top Premier League club came in saying the player was their third choice to fill a position. The selling club upped the price to €20m and the potential buyers agreed without hesitation.
Gabrielle Marcotti is one of the more thought provoking journalists writing about football. In his latest article in The Times, he tells the story of a foreign club who tried to sell a player in England. They were asking for €15m, but were prepared to go as low as €8m.
Then a top Premier League club came in saying the player was their third choice to fill a position. The selling club upped the price to €20m and the potential buyers agreed without hesitation.
Marcotti reckons that €15m is a ceiling for most clubs. According to the website Transfermarkt in the last three years there were 76 transfers of more than €20m. You could name the nine clubs responsible for three-quarters of them without difficulty.
Five were in the Premiership: Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool. The others were Barcelona, Real Madrid, PSG and Bayern Munich.
Marcotti reckons that at this level markets are inefficient. Apart from anything else there are diminishing returns. A £20m player is not going to be twice as productive as one who cost £10m.
So should top clubs be cannier in their purchases? But they are involved in an intense competition with each other. Moreover, if the wheels start to come off, the answer is: spend, spend, spend (well, perhaps not at Arsenal and less so at Chelsea than in the past).
The interesting current case is Manchester United after their FA Cup defeat to Arsenal last night. Now, losing in the FA Cup is not a big deal financially. For winners Arsenal it accounted for only 2 per cent of their income last season. They made £93m from the Premier League, £23m from the Champions League and £4.2m from the FA Cup.
However, the real concern for United is that they may not secure their Champions League place which is so vital to their continued commercial success and their football prestige. What is concerning many fans is that United seem to have lost the flair and dominance (particularly at Old Trafford) which they had in the past.
They can’t change managers again. So the answer may be an active presence in the summer transfer market. But if they are not in the Champions League, players may not be willing to come or may need more financial inducements. That will force up prices for everyone and they may not spend wisely.