You will overpay for everything – Sport – Kommersant

The research company CIES Football Observatory has published a rating in which experts have estimated the real expenses of European football clubs on the purchase of new players over the past ten years and compared them with the estimated value of the same players. It turned out that many top teams in Europe consistently overpaid. The leaders are Manchester United, who paid extra €238 million.

On Tuesday, September 20, the reputable research company CIES Football Observatory presented rating European football clubs, arranged in a curious order. CIES experts assessed the transfer activity of clubs included in the so-called big five (England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France) over the past ten years – from 2012 to 2022. The rating is based on the estimated value of the players, calculated according to the CIES methodology, as well as on the data on the value of their actual transfers. Based on the difference in the cost of buying a player and his assessment, CIES experts draw conclusions.

The leader of the rating of overpayers became “Manchester United”. Between 2012 and 2022 Manchester bought players for €1.594 billion. According to CIES, their maximum value was only €1.356 billion. That is, Manchester overpaid €238 million. Among the key acquisitions of Manchester over the years, we can recall the purchase in 2016 Paul Pogba for €105m (a club record at the time) or €95m for Anthony, paid last summer. Such an approach to spending money could be considered justified if Manchester United consistently took titles. However, after 2013, when Manchester became the champions of England, they did not win anything serious.

In second place in the rating of teams that did not “guess” the value of the player, Juventus. Turintsy made €1.031 billion in transfers over ten years. At the same time, according to CIES, they overpaid €234 million.

True, in their case, such an overspending looks quite justified. Indeed, over the past decade, Juventus won the Italian championship nine times.

Closes the top three PSG. Over the decade, the Parisians have acquired players for €1.01 billion (here, however, we must remember that, for example, Lionel Messi, got PSG for free), overpaying a solid €162 million. But for the super-rich Parisian club, this is not a problem.

There are, however, in the CIES rating and clubs that bought players significantly below their estimated value. And these are not some peripheral teams, but Spanish giants – “Barcelona” and “Atletico”. So, for ten years, Madrid “saved” € 82 million, and the Catalans – € 47 million. True, this did not prevent Barcelona from falling into a severe financial crisis, during which the club’s debts exceeded € 1 billion. Closes the “bottom” three “Seville” – she “underpaid” €44 million for the players.

Alexander Petrov