Inflated Transfer Fees in the English Premier League

Summer 2011 and once again the transfer market is awash with rumours about which players are going where and for how much. Some of the figures bounded about at the moment are absolutely crazy in this current economic climate to the point where £10 million for a half decent player is considered a bargain.

So far this summer we have seen Jordan Henderson move from Sunderland to Liverpool for a reported £16 million fee and Phil Jones sold by Blackburn to Manchester United for £17 million. The ages of these players are 21 and 19 respectively and between them they have only made 116 appearances. In contrast Rafael Van Der Vaart, a player with 90 international caps and a wealth of European football experience was bought by Tottenham in the summer of 2010 for only £8 million. This raises a seperate question as to why English player's transfer values are so inflated but I will cover that in another blog.

Henderson and Jones will hopefully do extremely well for Liverpool and Manchester United as they are currently two of the hottest young English talents but the money paid for them is ridiculous. If you include the £35 million which Liverpool paid for Andy Carroll in January 2011 - a 22 year old who has made 97 appearances that means a total of £68 million has been paid out for 3 players under the age of 22 with a total of 213 appearances. The pressures on these players will be immense as they strive to justify their inflated transfer fees but hopefully with the guidance of their managers Daliglish and Ferguson they should live up to expectations.

The current British and World transfer record is the £80 million paid by Real Madrid for Cristiano Ronaldo to Manchester United in 2009. Many people argued that Ronaldo would find it extremel

y hard to cope with the pressure of such a huge fee but he has been a revelation at the Spanish club and has so far scored 66 goals in 63 games. It does go to show that not all players are affected by these inflated fees so we live in hope that Jones and Henderson go down the same route and live up to the high expectations now placed upon them. 

How the British Transfer Record has been broken since 1995

Jan 1995      Andy Cole Newcastle to Man Utd £7m

June 1995    Dennis Bergkamp Inter Milan to Arsenal £7.5m

July 1996     Alan Shearer Blackburn to Newcastle £15m

Aug 1999     Nicolas Anelka Arsenal to Real Madrid £22.5m

July 2001     Juan Sebastian Veron Lazio to Manchester United £28.1m

July 2002     Rio Ferdinand Leeds Utd to Manchester United £29.1m

July 2006     Andriy Shevchenko AC Milan to Chelsea £30.8m

Sept 2008    Robinho Real Madrid to Man City £32.5m

July 2009     Cristiano Ronaldo Man Utd to Real Madrid £80m

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