£40m for Sigurdsson proves transfer fees don’t matter anymore
Published:
Swansea’s reported asking price of £50m for star midfielder, Gylfi Sigurdsson, proves once and for all that transfer fees in the Premier League simply don’t matter anymore. They are a figment of your imagination.
England’s elite clubs are using Monopoly money and they don’t care who knows it.
Where once there was a premium for signing young English players, now there is a premium for signing anyone – and an added premium for signing from a fellow Premier League team.
This is not a dig at Sigurdsson – who clearly is a very good player, and proven in this country – but the laissez faire attitude to what is happening to the transfer market in England has to be a concern.
At what point will the market bottom out? Will it happen when West Ham bid £60m for Marko Arnautovic, or when West Brom shell out £70m for Danny Drinkwater? At what point will the powers-that-be stop this madness?
By all accounts, Everton are going to get their man for somewhere between £40-50m. Three years ago £35m got you Alexis Sanchez. £30m got you Cesc Fabregas. £32m got you Diego Costa. Three years on and clubs are exceeding that for Gylfi Sigurdsson.
Yes, the Sky deal has provided clubs with substantially larger funds but sense has largely gone out the window.
Sky Sports viewing numbers have dropped alarmingly in the last two years, too. How might that affect the deal in a couple of years’ time? Will Premier League clubs be left with a cheque they can’t cash?
These are important questions to ask, not just regarding the integrity of the game and the safeguarding of clubs’ futures, but also how it will impact on fans.
The sheer scale of what is happening to the market and its eye-watering inflationary upturn could mean fans end up paying more and more for their match-going experience.
If England’s elite clubs don’t care about what they pay for players, they’re heading in a direction in which they’ll not care how much they charge you to follow them.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing
