Reflections from the 2017 Summer transfer window by Antoine Dalli
R
ewind 38 years: a certain Trevor Francis became the first British player to break the seven-figure barrier when Nottingham Forest prised him away from Birmingham City for an overall transfer fee of £1.18M (the initial outlay of £950,000 spiralled to £1.18 million with the addition of VAT and other sundries). Back then, it must have felt like the sporting equivalent of putting a man on the Moon. For the interest of perspectives, the deal sanctioned by then Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough was technically not a world record. At the time, two Italian strikers by the names of Giuseppe Savoldi and Paolo Rossi had already surpassed the two billion Italian lire mark, which equated to well in excess of £1 million. But at the time, Serie A was not as popular in Britain as it is today, and the reporters who gathered around the signing ceremony on Feb 9, 1979, had a breathless sense of history in the making. How things have evolved since Francis’ move to two-times European Cup winners Nottingham Forest. Nowadays, a million-pound fee forked by a club for a footballer has become rather customary. Not only that, but a player who is sold for £1M is considered ordinary to put it mildly. Transfers involving £20M or thereabouts have nowadays become the order of the day in the five major European leagues particularly in the English Premier League. Last summer, spending on the signings of new players reached new heights amongst Europe’s major five leagues. According to world’s football governing body FIFA, English clubs spent more than double the amount on transfer fees in the summer window than any other European league. Despite the fact that Brazilian ace Neymar became the world’s record signing with a staggering €222 million move from five-times European champions Barcelona to nouveau riche Paris SG and 20-year-old Ousmane Dembele making a big-money move to Barcelona from 2013 Champions League runners-up Borussia Dortmund, it is the English top flight that remains the biggest spender in Europe.
things into better perspective, the following were the biggest transfers in the five major European Leagues: In the English Premier League: 1) €85 million, Romelu Lukaku to Manchester United from Everton; 2) €80 million, Álvaro Morata to Chelsea from Real Madrid; 3) €70 million, Naby Keïta to Liverpool from RB Leipzig; 4) €60 million, Alexandre Lacazette to Arsenal from Olympique Lyonnais; and 5) €57.5 million, Benjamin Mendy from Monaco to Manchester City. In the German Bundesliga: 1) €41.5 million, Corentin Tolisso to Bayern Munich from Olympique Lyonnais; 2) €24 million, Andriy Yarmolenko from Dynamo Kyiv to Borussia Dortmund; 3) €21 million, Kingsley Coman to Bayern Munich from Juventus; 4) €20 million, Niklas Süle to Bayern Munich from 1899 Hoffenheim; and 5) €20 million, Maximilian Philipp to Borussia Dortmund from SC Freiburg. In the Spanish La Liga: 1) €105 million, Ousmane Dembélé to Barcelona from Borussia Dortmund; 2) €40 million, Paulinho to FC Barcelona from GZ Evergrande; 3) €36 million, Vitolo to Atlético Madrid from Sevilla; 4) €30.5 million, Nélson Semedo to Barcelona from Benfica; and 5) €30 million, Theo Hernandez to Real Madrid from Atlético Madrid. In the Italian Serie A: 1) €42 million, Leonardo Bonucci to AC Milan from Juventus; 2) €40 million, Federico Bernardeschi to Juventus from Fiorentina; 3) €38 million, Andre Silva to AC Milan from FC Porto; 4) €30 million, Franck Kessié from Atalanta to AC Milan; and 5) €25 million, Andrea Conti to AC Milan from Atalanta. In the French Ligue 1: 1) €222 million, Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain from FC Barcelona; 2) €30 million, Keita Baldé to Monaco from SS Lazio; 3) €25 million, Youri Tielemans to AS Monaco from RSC Anderlecht; 4) €17 million, Ismaïla Sarr to Stade Rennais from FC Metz; and 5) €16 million, Yuri Berchiche to Paris Saint-Germain from Real Sociedad.
FIFA’s analysis of the five major European leagues – England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France – shows clubs reached a new level of spending last summer, with a total of $3.67 billion (£2.75bn) – a 31.7% increase on last year, despite the fact that the number of deals only went up by only 6.2%.
Manchester City spent over £200M on Bernardo Silva (Monaco), Ederson (Benfica), Kyle Walker (Tottenham), Benjamin Mendy (Monaco) and Danilo (Real Madrid) to further bolster Pep Guardiola’s star-studded team. If the Citizens were prudent enough to spread the risk by utilising their transfer kitty on several players, the same cannot be said of Paris Saint-Germain’s lavish spending.
English Premier League sides were responsible for more than one third of that total, spending $1.4bn (£1bn) on a total of 526 players, and recouping just $477m (£358m) in sales. To put
PSG, six-times winners of the Ligue 1, adopted a rather different transfer market strategy in that they devoted practically their entire transfer budget on the signing of left wing
Neymar. Unai Emery’s side also signed Dani Alves (free agent), Kylian Mbappé on loan from archrivals Monaco and Yuri Berchiche from Real Sociedad for £14.40m. Seven games into the new Ligue 1 season, Paris SG are already setting the pace… 19 points as a result of six straight wins and one draw (a stalemate vs. mid-table Montpellier). Emery’s side are the hot favourites to win Ligue 1. Not only because they signed Neymar but also because Monaco lost some of their best players last summer: Benjamin Mendy, Bernardo Silva (both Man City) and Tiemoué Bakayoko (Chelsea). However, it is a fact that Neymar, like his illustrious predecessor Zlatan Ibrahimović (from Milan in 2012), was not signed to merely help Paris SG lift their seventh Ligue 1. Neymar is expected to help Paris SG bridge the gap with respect to the crème de la crème in the Champions League. History teaches us though that one player is rarely a game-changer. However, a look at a typical Paris SG starting line-up, one finds that Neymar is not the only stalwart within their fold: Thiago Silva, Thiago Motta, Marco Verratti, Adrien Rabiot, Edinson Cavani, Julian Draxler and Mbappe are Neymar’s teammates. Neymar, who cost a whopping 138% more than the £89m Juventus cashed in from Manchester United for French midfielder Paul Pogba last summer, has been in commanding form for the Ligue 1 leaders but it is still to be seen whether he can put Paris SG on the same class with the likes of Real Madrid, his former club Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Manchester United. In recent weeks, Neymar made the headlines for the wrong reasons after clashing with striker Cavani, formerly of Palermo and Napoli, over a penalty and a free kick. There were reports in the media that Neymar’s former teammate Lionel Messi was unsurprised by Neymar’s appetite to cause disruption given how much he wanted to be Barcelona’s main man. According to the same sources, 30-year-old Messi was aware of how much the Brazilian wanted to overthrow him in the dressing room – despite the duo publicly insisting they got along. Off the field of play, there was an inevitable domino effect in the market. Many considered the transfer fees Man City paid for Kyle Walker and then Benjamin Mendy making them the most expensive defenders in history was ample proof of the hugely inflated transfer fees generated nowadays in modern football. Such transfer fees brought a barrage of criticism. (Continued on page 37) VOL 45 - ISSUE 1 - OCTOBER 2017
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